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COFtfRIGHT DEPOSIIi 




THE CHRIST 

(From "Christ and the Doctors," by Hofmann) 



Wbt giringbon 3Religiou£ education QEext* 
Hatoft ®. Botonep, General Cbitor 

WEEK-DAY SCHOOL SERIES GEORGE HERBERT BETTS, Editor 



Living at Our Best 



By 

GRACE HASTINGS SHARP 

and 

MABEL HILL 




THE ABINGDON PRESS 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI 



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Copyright, 1922, by 
GRACE HASTINGS SHARP 

AND 

MABEL HILL 
All Rights Reserved 



Printed in the United States of America 



NOV 29 '22 

C1AG92173 
<H0 J 



CONTENTS 

I 
HEALTH OF BODY, MIND, SPIRIT 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Growing Up 15 

II. The Will to Be Well 21 

III. Heads and Heels 26 

IV. Have a Heart 32 

V. The Doctor-Preacher 37 

VI. The Born Leader 43 

VII. Health and Heaven 48 

VIII. "The Card on the House" 54 

IX. The Coated Tongue 59 

X. Who Are You? 64 

II 

WEALTH OF MONEY, TIME, OPPORTUNITY 

XI. The Laborer Is Worthy of His Hire 73 

XII. Money Is Defense 78 

XIII. Beginning Business 83 

XIV. Truth Is Wealth 88 

XV. What Is Your Work? 93 

XVI. When Work Is Not Drudgery 98 

XVII. "My Skill Is My Fortune, Sir" 104 

XVIII. What Is Thrift? 109 

XIX. When Become a Specialist? 115 

XX. Save for the Sunny Day 123 

XXI. Rich Toward God 129 

XXII. High Adventure 136 



4 CONTENTS 

III 

HAPPINESS BASED ON CONFORMITY TO LAW 
AND SERVICE 

CHAPTER PAGB 

XXIII. Happiness 143 

XXIV. Each For All 149 

XXV. Playing the Game of Life 156 

XXVI. Time Off 161 

XXVII. Follow Your Leader 167 

XXVIII. Good Fellows 175 

XXIX. Let the People Rule 181 

XXX. "My Country, Tis of Thee" 187 

XXXI. Are You the Hope of the World? 194 

XXXII. "Soul-Keep" 199 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

HOFMANN 

The Christ (from Christ and the Doctors) . . . Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Christ and the Doctors 84 

Christ in the Home of Mary and Martha 120 

The Sermon on the Mount 132 

Christ and the Woman of Samaria 146 

Christ Knocking at the Door 164 

The Christ 178 

Christ in Gethsemane 200 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The authors desire to acknowledge indebtedness for 
permission to use the quoted matter indicated below: 

Houghton Mifflin Company — "Grow Old Along With 
Me," Robert Browning. 'The Chambered Nautilus," 
Oliver Wendell Holmes. "Duty," George MacDonald. 
"The Eternal Goodness," John Greenleaf Whittier. "A 
Soldier's Speech," Ella Lyman Cabot. "Each and All," 
Ralph Walph Emerson. "The Fatherland," James Rus- 
sell Lowell. 

The Methodist Book Concern — "Christian! Dost Thou 
See Them?" Translated by John M. Neale. "Where 
Cross the Crowded Ways," Frank Mason North. "Hark 
the Voice," Daniel March. "Dare to Do Right," Daniel 
March. "Fight the Good Fight," John S. B. Monsell. 
"Lord, Speak to Me," Frances R. Havergal. "Work, 
for the Night Is Coming," Mrs. A. L. Coghill. "O 
Master, Let Me Walk With Thee," Washington Gladden. 
"A Loftier Race," John Addington Symonds. "Come, 
Ye Thankful," Harry Alford. "Breast the Wave," John 
B. S. Monsell. "Saviour, Teach Me," Jane E. Leeson. 
"Forward Be Our Watchword," Henry Alford. "Take 
My Life," Frances R. Havergal. 

Charles Scribner's Sons — "Be Strong," Maltbie D. 
Babcock. "Children's Birthright," Henry Turner Bailey. 
"The Noble Nature, * ' Ben Jonson. ' 'Strength and Grace, ' ' 
Dallas Lore Sharp. "The Master's Men," William G. 
Tarrant. "Stradivarius," George Eliot. "Song of 
Peace," M. K. Schermerhorn. "The Conquering Army," 
Katrina Trask. "O Beautiful My Country," Frederick 
L. Hosmer. "We Need the Cromwell Fire," Edwin 
Markham. 



THE CHILDREN'S BIRTHRIGHT 

The National Kindergarten Association and all who 
believe in The Crowning Race of Tennyson should aim 
to give to all children the privilege of having funda- 
mental experiences with nature. 

All children ought to be familiar with the open coun- 
try. They should know the joy of playing in healthful 
mud, of paddling in clean water, of hearing roosters call 
up the sun, and birds sing praises to God for the new 
day. 

They should have the vision of pure skies enriched 
at dawn and sunset with unspeakable glory; of dew- 
drenched mornings flashing with priceless gems; of 
grain fields and woodlands yielding to the feet of the 
wind; of the vast night sky "all throbbing and panting 
with stars." 

They should feel the joy of seed time and harvest, of 
dazzling summer noons, and of creaking glittering winter 
nights. They should live with flowers and butterflies, 
with the wild things that have made possible the world 
of fable. 

They should experience the thrill of going barefoot, 
of being out in the rain without umbrellas and rubber 
coats and buckled overshoes; or riding a white birch, of 
sliding down pine boughs, of climbing ledges and tall 
trees, of diving head first into a transparent pool. 

They ought to know the smell of wet earth, of new- 
mown hay; of the blossoming wild grape and eglantine, 
of an apple orchard in May and of a pine forest in July; 
of the crushed leaves of wax myrtle, sweet fern, mint 



io LIVING AT OUR BEST 

and fir; of the breath of cattle and of fog blown inland 
from the sea. 

They should hear the answer the trees make to the 
rain and to the wind; the sound of rippling and falling 
water, the muffled roar of the sea in a storm, and its 
lisping and laughing and clapping of hands in a stiff 
breeze. They should know the sound of bees in a plum 
tree in May, of frogs in a bog in April, of grasshoppers 
along the roadsides in June, of crickets out in the dark 
in September. They should hear a leafless ash hum, a 
pine tree sigh, old trees groan in the forest, and the 
floating ice in a brook making its incomparable music 
beneath the frozen crystal roof of some flooded glade. 

They should have a chance to chase butterflies, to 
catch fish, to ride on a load of hay, to camp out, to cook 
over an open fire, to tramp through new country, and 
to sleep under the open sky. They should have tie fun 
of driving a horse, paddling a canoe, and sailing a boat, 
and of discovering that Nature will honor the humblest 
seed they plant. 

Things that children can do in cities are not to be 
compared with such country activities. Out of the coun- 
try and its experience has come and always will come 
the most stimulating and healthful art of the world. 
One cannot appreciate and enjoy to the full nature 
books, novels, histories, poems, pictures, or even musical 
compositions, who has not had in his youth the blessed 
contact with that world upon the face of which our 
cities appear as stains that should be washed away. 

I do not forget what cities have done for us, and 
always must do; I do not forget that it is under the 
type of a city that the glories of the heavenly world are 
described to us. But I like to remember that that city 
is fifteen hundred miles square, according to the measur- 



THE CHILDREN'S BIRTHRIGHT „ 

ing of the angel, and that within its walls, therefore, 
there is plenty of room for a river of life as large as the 
Mississippi, and for gardens the size of whole States 
on either side, where the trees that yield their fruits 
every month have room enough to be full grown! 

One can get all the best a city has to yield by visiting 
it, but one cannot reap all the harvests of the country 
except by living there, and especially by living there in 
childhood. And I feel somehow that such a life in the 
country is the birthright of every child. There is truth 
in Cowper's statement that God made the country and 
man made the town. 

I believe that every child of God has a right to see the 
country — the house his heavenly Father made for him 
— unobstructed by brick walls, unspoiled by filth, and 
undimmed by smoke. And one of these days, somehow 
all children born into the world will be given a chance 
to enjoy to the full their inspiring patrimony. Perhaps 
they may be required by law to serve the commonwealth 
by living in the country a few years for their normal 
development as later by living in Government Training 
Camps in preparation for International Public Service. 

Living in the country in childhood "the Voice of the 
Lord God, walking in the garden in the cool of the day" 
is more likely to be heard; and, being heard by all, that 
Voice might be answered more universally with warmer 
love. 

Henry Turner Bailey. 



HEALTH OF BODY, MIND, AND SPIRIT 



CHAPTER I 

GROWING UP 

The boy asked — 

"How big was Alexander, Pa, 

That people call him great? 
Was he, like old Goliath tall, 
His spear an hundred weight?" 

His amused father replied — 

"About as tall as I or Uncle James; 

'Twas not his stature made him great, 
But greatness of his name!" 

The disgusted boy exclaimed — 

"His name so great! I know 

'Tis long, but easy quite to spell, 
And more than a half a year ago 
I knew it very well." 

HEROIC SIZE 

We all understand this boy and his disappointment. 
A great man, a war hero, must look great. Napoleon 
was a little man, but this small boy (and there is a 
small boy in all of us) sees Napoleon, his head up, his 
shoulders back, his hand like an orator's thrust into 
his coat, looking every inch of his size — and an inch 
or two more. 

The "casket copy" of the Iliad. — Alexander's 
carrying Greek culture and learning in the train of his 
conquest meant nothing to this boy, though perhaps 

15 



16 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

this story from Plutarch would: After the great fight, 
when Alexander overcame Darius at Issus, "among 
the treasures and other booty that was taken from 
Darius, there was a very precious casket, which being 
brought to Alexander for a rarity, he asked those about 
him what they thought fittest to be laid up in it; he 
told them that he should keep Homer's Iliad in it." 
It was this copy, ever afterward called the casket copy, 
which he nightly laid "with his dagger under his pillow, 
declaring that he esteemed it a perfect portable treasure 
of all military virtue and knowledge." 

Now, the book detail of the story would hardly be 
taken by the average boy or girl as the act of a world- 
conqueror, while the dagger part surely would be. 

Look the part. — A conqueror, to be "the real thing," 
must look the part. He must have a strong body, 
and if possible, a big body. A lithe body might do, 
just as a tiger is almost as much of a "thriller" as a 
hippopotamus. At any rate, the hero must be able 
to handle his opponent with his physical strength as 
well as with his wits and his daring, for the hero must 
have a body fit for the hardship and the extra strain 
which leadership always calls for. So, to a boy, nothing 
seems so wonderful as a combination of size and strength. 
Jumbo, the famous elephant, was stuffed and given by 
Barnum, the great showman, to the museum of Tufts 
College. There he is to-day; and though but a "spec- 
imen," he is still lord of the museum, as he was lord 
of boys' hearts through all the years of his going up 
and down the land with the circus which he did so 
much to glorify. 

SIZE PLUS STRENGTH 

This love of size and strength explains why there is 
no such tonic for you boys and girls as to feel that you 



GROWING UP 17 

are growing up. How good it is to feel that you can 
"take care of yourself"; that you can reach two inches 
higher, throw ten feet farther, lift five pounds heavier; 
that you can judge distances more accurately, or see a 
squall coming over the lake and know that it is the 
part of wisdom to get to land; that you can argue to 
convince, and "talk like a gentleman" (at least before 
company); that you can give a direction clearly, and 
can follow a direction intelligently! 

A member of decent society. — All of this means 
that you are growing up to take your place as a "mem- 
ber of decent society" (decent from the Latin decere, 
"to be fitting"), and that you can fairly feel yourself 
grow, as you can see a grapevine lengthen out of a 
June day. Your mother explains, with pride, that 
"Jack can have but one suit at a time — he outgrows 
his clothes so fast!" 

But already you feel that growth is not a mere matter 
of getting tall or of growing broad. You know, for 
you have watched your friends and playmates, that 
growth is also shown in self-control. As Junior-High 
boys and girls you no longer cry for the things you 
want. You hold on to yourself and wait. Or else 
you do as your father would — go to work and 
earn them. 

You do not cry even for a toothache! You go to the 
dentist, and, well, you have that tooth out — perhaps! 
Anyhow, you don't cry now, as you used to. Why? 
Oh, you are growing up, that's all. Nowadays you 
hang up your own clothes; you even brush them (and 
out of doors, of course); you "wipe off your feet," polish 
your shoes, pick up your books, wash your hands before 
meat — just as in the old Jewish days — from habit 
rather than from compulsion. 



18 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

BECOMING SUBJECT TO 

Gradually you are becoming subject, not to your 
parents, but to your conscience and to your sense of 
fitness. You are helping to make a real home, where 
you can bring your friends, without embarrassment to 
your mother, and where her welcome is expressed, not 
only by, "I'm glad to see you," but also by that peace 
and order which alone are fit for our guests. 

Your sharing in the exercise of family hospitality 
shows that your growth of body has gone hand in hand 
with your growth in the feeling of social obligation. 
This obligation, first fitly expressed in your home, is 
the preparation for a wider hospitality toward strange 
people and strange ideas that come from without your 
home. Your increased stature has been "safe for the 
world" because, with your increased strength has come 
a self-control that makes it comfortable and enjoyable 
to live with you. 

Safe for democracy. — Subjection of your growing 
strength to authority has resulted in a self-control 
that literally makes you "safe for democracy," that 
is, for living in a home, instead of in an asylum. You 
can now be trusted "at large," which may mean that 
you can now be trusted not to "talk in meeting," nor 
wear your picture hat in a public place where you cut 
off the view of others. You can be trusted not to make 
a dangerous weapon of a hat pin or to poke your um- 
brella through a forty-thousand-dollar picture. In 
short, you have made your manners subject to others' 
comfort, while the Lord has been adding a cubit to 
your stature. 

You are in favor with God and man. By meeting 
your obligations to one, you have fulfilled them to both, 
just as did a boy named Jesus in the long ago. 



GROWING UP 19 

MEMORY QUOTATION 
The Noble Nature 

It is not growing like a tree 

In bulk, doth make man better be; 

Or standing long an oak three hundred year, 

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere; 

A lily of a day 

Is fairer far in May, 
Although it fall and die that night, 
It was the plant and flower of Light. 
In small proportions we just beauty see; 
And in short measures life may perfect be. 

— Ben Jonson. 

STUDY TOPICS 

1. Is there a reason for "little girls liking big dolls" 

and "big girls liking little dolls"? Is it for the 
same reason that any boy likes to catch a big 
trout rather than a little shiner? 

2. Name good reasons for valuing bigness in a tree, 

a fruit, a vegetable; in muscles, body, hands, feet. 

3. What is meant by a big soul? 

4. Why is a "Mexican hairless" valued for its small- 

ness? a dwarf fruit tree? a baby? 

5. What is meant by a small soul? 

6. Look up the story of the casket in Plutarch's life of 

Alexander (A. H. Clough edition, Vol. IV, pp. 188 
and 214), and try to make plain why Alexander 
acted worthy of the great man he was in placing 
his Iliad in the casket. 

7. What was the place of honor for the family Bible 

in your grandmother's home? Is there a reason? 

8. Mention five kinds of responsible acts that you 

do which show you have grown up. 



20 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

9. Why do ill manners look worse in a big girl than in 
her little sister? in a big boy than in his little 
brother? in a grown person than in a child? 

10. Explain just what the French expression Noblesse 
oblige,, "Rank imposes obligation," means. Give 
examples that show why "rank," as due to birth, 
education, wealth, health, great strength, genius, 
impose obligation. 

Text: 

And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and 
in favor with God and man.— Luke 2: 52. 



CHAPTER II 

THE WILL TO BE WELL 

Theodore Roosevelt was a sickly boy, so sickly 
that it was feared he would be an invalid all his life. 
But his father was a wise man as well as a rich man, and 
when he was told by specialists that his son might over- 
come his bodily weakness if only he could be made to 
do the right sorts of physical exercises, he went to work 
and fitted up a small gymnasium in their home and 
bade the ambitious Theodore to see what it would do 
for him. Even playing upon his vanity, we can fancy the 
anxious father challenging his brilliant son to match 
his body for strength with his mind, in order to make 
his brains bring to himself and to humanity all he owed 
in return for his rare mental gifts. "All depends upon 
ant body!" 

THE BOY IS FATHER TO THE MAN 

The boy had great respect for his father. He believed 
what his father said and determined then and there to 
be a well, strong man, even if it took every particle of 
his will-power to go through the drill and exercise to 
build up his body. We know how monotonous it is to 
go through exercises, often painful, day after day, and 
hence we know the will to overcome that controlled the 
boy Roosevelt and, in time, made possible the man 
Roosevelt. 

The strong man. — He willed to be a strong man. 
He accomplished his purpose. And so throughout his- 

21 



22 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

life he willed one thing after another: to be a new kind 
of police commissioner; to be a writer, a boxer, and 
explorer; to set up a standard of right and wrong for 
the world. 

The same, will, differently expressed, made him what 
many regard as the dominant personality of his day. 
At any rate, we know that it required only three years 
of persistent effort to make of a weakling of twelve a 
young man who could look forward to a life of joy and 
to a career the match for which, in variety and interest, 
proved to be without record. And, best of all, it proved 
to be a career of his own choice, the outcome of one 
first necessity: to become physically fit — made so by his 
own controlling will. It was Roosevelt's way of grap- 
pling with a hard problem that challenged the world's 
admiration rather than the approval of the single acts 
of his life. 

Be strong. — And just so, from twelve years on, like 
Roosevelt, every boy of you, and every girl of you, 
even more, should set about the serious business of 
winning perfect health, if only, in case of need, to prove 
the satisfaction, when you have to face a wall, of being 
able to make your way through it by a happy combina- 
tion of a quick mind and a responsive body. Winning 
perfect health means you are up with your class, and, 
that through your will you are able to present a body 
as holy as if you had been born fit. 

LIVING AT OUR BEST REQUIRES GOOD BODIES 

For century after century, artist after artist of all 
nationalities has tried to portray Jesus. It is doubtful 
if a single artist has satisfied even himself; doubtful 
whether we, looking at this vast gallery of Christ pic- 
tures, feel that anyone says all or just what we should 



THE WILL TO BE WELL 23 

like to express. There has been one invariable desire 
in the heart of the portrayer; to make Christ look 
perfection, whether as Babe in the manger in Bethlehem, 
on the flight into Egypt, on the return to Nazareth; as 
a Boy in the carpenter shop or before the rabbis; as 
Man, a guest at a wedding feast; as Saviour, the Good 
Shepherd; as Prisoner, before Pilate; as the Anointed 
on the cross; as the risen Saviour on the way to Emmaus. 

Is it strange that human mind and human hand have 
failed when the burden on the artist has been to por- 
tray as babe, boy, man, one whose body was a living 
sacrifice, holy, and acceptable unto God? that, being 
earthly, they cannot picture perfection? 

When Paul bade the early Christians in Rome to 
present their bodies a living sacrifice, "holy, acceptable 
unto God, as their reasonable service," he spoke in 
language that these Christian Jews had heard all their 
life. They knew that it was forbidden to offer any but 
an unblemished animal to God. Was it not reasonable, 
then, to present their own bodies, whether as a living 
or a dying sacrifice, holy — in honor of their new enriched 
ideal of God, as Christ had shown him to be? 

On full time. — Saint Paul knew that in those trying 
times, when it was by no means fashionable to be a 
Christian in Rome, it was just as hard to preserve a 
body holy as we know it is in America to-day. He knew 
it is always easier to die as a martyr than to live as a 
Christian, when living as a Christian means keeping 
your body clean outwardly, pure inwardly, every organ 
functioning through being properly fed by circulatory, 
nervous, and muscular systems, each doing its part. 

A holy body is the only kind of a human machine 
that can do full-time in forwarding any kind of an 
enterprise. Stopping for human repairs is as wasteful 



24 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

as stopping the factory engine and holding up the entire 
plant for mechanical repairs. It is estimated by health 
authorities that there are three million persons sick on 
any day of the year in this country and that at least 
half of these could have saved the illness by obeying 
the laws of right physical living. 

Save on repairs. — Think how much of your own 
physical repairs you can avoid by early adoption of 
"Holy First" as the watchword in the care of your body; 
and how much you can save of doctors, druggists, hos- 
pitals and nurses' costs through a little care, instead of 
how much you may spend through a little lack of care. 

But suppose you were not born tit? Then your first 
business is to employ a skillful doctor to make you fit 
as may be; your next business is to engage yourself to 
keep fit— "as your reasonable service" to yourself, to 
your fellow men, and to your God. 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Christian, dost thou see them 

On the holy ground, 
How the powers of darkness 

Rage thy steps around? 

Christian, up and smite them, 

Counting gain but loss, 
In the strength that cometh 

By the holy cross. 

— Tr. John M. Neale. 

STUDY TOPICS 

i. Is your body fit? What evidences have we from the 
career of Jesus that he possessed a strong and 
vigorous body? 



THE WILL TO BE WELL 25 

2. Is your body under your command? Prove it by test- 
ing yourself as follows: 

(1) Do you walk correctly? 

(2) Do you stand correctly ? 

(3) Do you breathe correctly? 

(4) Have you a hollow chest? 

(5) Have you stooping shoulders? 

(6) Is your step elastic? 

(7) Do you shake hands with a strong, but not 
rough, heartiness? 

(8) Can you run without getting winded? 

(9) Can you throw a ball properly? 

(10) Are your muscles in healthy condition? 

(11) Can you use your fingers dexterously, either 
on the piano or banjo, in sewing or knitting or weav- 
ing, in whittling or cobbling, in basketry or braiding? 

(12) Can you use your voice effectively? 

(13) Is your tongue glib, and can you say, "Peter 
Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers"? 

(14) Can you swing your arms so as to handle a 
scythe or sickle, chop wood; and if you are girls, can 
you handle dainty dishes, and wash and iron and 
hang out clothes? As boys and girls can you play 
tennis? golf? 

(15) Have you a smiling face? 

Text: 

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies 
of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, 
holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable 
service. — Romans 12: 1. 



CHAPTER III 

HEADS AND HEELS 

Physical strength alone cannot be the whole of life. 
Your minds must be active and your moral nature 
sensitive if you are to take your part in home and school, 
and to meet life with a zest. You cannot think of your 
body all the time. That would make you selfish; be- 
sides, if your only concern were with your body, you 
would always seem to be demanding, "See me do tricks 
— with my great lungs, my big muscles, and my steady 
nerves," instead of using these fine physical powers to 
fit you for filling a big place in the world. 

HEALTH ONLY THE BEGINNING 

You would not be content to put all your school years 
into sport, and find yourself, on leaving school, unpre- 
pared to do any of the work which requires the training 
that alone can open up the roads of life to new adventure. 

Heads or heels. — School boys and girls, like college 
men and women, are always easily divided into heads 
and heels — the first, who are training their powers of 
thought and storing up knowledge for judgment, and the 
second, who run to sports and dancing to the neglect of 
the real things that school and college alone can give 
them. The second class is serious in play, trifling in 
work. 

Sports are good, except when the heart of a student 
is fixed upon them as a goal of school life. The two 
interests, centered in heads and heels, ought to be and 

26 



HEADS AND HEELS 27 

can be combined for the betterment of the mind and 
body — a nimble pair of heels quickening the very work- 
ings of the clever head; and that head, by recognizing 
the true place and value of the heels, getting out of them 
the greater joy and zest in all its study and work. 

Heads and heels. — Physical strength is good as far 
as it goes along with mental strength and helps make it; 
and, so in turn, is convertible into mental strength. 
Strength of body and strength of mind are the first two 
steps up to the door of success. 

Athletics a means. — Athletics are for boys and 
girls, to help fashion them into men and women. But 
men and women must get their exercises largely in doing 
the world's work. Both as boys and girls and as men 
and women, you should have a good time whether at 
work or play, and should look upon work as applied 
play; but, from the first of your going to school, you 
should know the end, beyond a good time, is a good 
headful of facts; for Mr. Edison certainly is right when 
he holds that clear thinking is not done best in a mind 
lacking facts. 

Growth must be of two sorts: along with growing 
muscles must go a growing brain, so that your brain can 
order your body, just as the perfect "team" is made by 
the man's intelligence guiding the horse's strength. 

GETTING GOOD HEADS 

But, you ask, what means have we of getting a good 
head? One word, education, answers, since it is for the 
purpose of making full use of your head that you give 
over so much effort to making and keeping a good body. 
It is, after all, only for the sake of your head that our 
vast system of education was set going and is kept 
going. 



28 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

The school bell rings. — Picture, for a moment, this 
educational program: twelve years of school from 
kindergarten through the high school with its classical, 
scientific, and commercial courses fitting for college, and 
so leading to professional schools in law, medicine, and 
theology, which prepare the specialist who will direct 
and shape the immediate future of his profession. Pic- 
ture next the opportunities for the eighth grade boy or 
girl, who, preferring to take up work in manual, voca- 
tional, and mechanic arts schools, seeks either a short- 
cut to living or to further study in the technical schools 
of applied science that make all sorts of engineers; next, 
picture the schools of music, art, elocution; the galleries, 
museums, aquariums, laboratories, and "zoos," which 
are some of the different sorts of stores that deal in the 
tools of life: the facts, which good heels must help 
good heads to use. 

OBEDIENCE 

In order that your muscles and mind may be trained 
to respond to your own orders you must be trained to 
respond promptly to the orders of your parents and your 
teachers. Just as school implies obey, so should home. 
School as a verb tells this, as in the expression, Indians 
"school themselves'' to endurance. "That Jesus sub- 
mitted to this schooling we know, because after the 
scene in the Temple he went down to Nazareth with his 
parents and continued to live there as an obedient son 
— "was subject unto them." This being an obedient son 
was a preparation necessary to fit Jesus to lead others. 
He learned as a boy that there must be a head in every 
well-ordered home. He found out early that "order is 
heaven's first law" and that he could attend to his 
Father's business later only by being subject as a young 



HEADS AND HEELS 29 

man to the daily round in his own religiously conducted 
home. 

Jewish home life. — Obedience for Jesus, the boy, 
was just what obedience was to all other well-reared 
Jewish boys. No matter how much more his spirit might 
commune with his heavenly Father through nature or 
prayer than is common among boys or girls of his age, 
he still had every detail of his private life or public? 
worship prescribed for him by the laws of Moses. All 
of life was religious and all molded by Jewish tradition. 
The day in Joseph's home began with prayer. There 
was no breaking of the night's fast except as a part of 
strictly ordered ceremonial. There were many feast 
days and fast days, all observed with most careful regard 
for custom and rule; and so completely did Jewish law 
bind the Jewish home that there was no thought but to 
obey. 

Young America. — There is little in American home 
life to suggest any likeness to the Jewish boys' training 
in obedience. Your lack of their virtues of obedience 
and respect for parental authority is in large part due 
to the loose rein with which you American boys and girls 
are held. Both you and your parents suffer for this 
now, and your children will suffer increasingly, unless 
they can be brought up so that the lack of outside con- 
trol will be made up for by inside control, that is, by 
your children's meeting your wishes of their "own sweet 
will," instead of by compulsion. 

The law of the pack : obey. — Rudyard Kipling, in 
his "Law of the Jungle," perhaps the greatest poem of 
animal philosophy ever written, sums up the whole of 
the "pack" wisdom in the one word — "Obey!" He 
means that in living together obedience is life, and that, 
while the young must be subject to the experience of 



3 o LIVING AT OUR BEST 

their parents, quite as truly the parents must be subject 
to the needs of their young; both must obey. Now, 
however little the American boy shall obey the law of 
his parent, he must still obey the law of the doctor, for 

The Boy that shall keep it may prosper 
But the Boy that shall break it must die. 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Grow Old Along with Me 

Grow old along with me! 
The best is yet to be, 

The last of life, for which the first was made; 
Our times are in His hand 
Who saith, "A whole I planned, 
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be 
afraid!" 

— Robert Browning. 

STUDY TOPICS 

Tests of your own Heads and Heels: 
i. Are you on time for your meals? 

2. Are you punctual at school? 

3. Are you punctual at church and Sunday school? 

4. Are you particular to keep your appointments with 

other children as well as with grown-up people? 

5. When you do things, do you do them quickly or do 

you dawdle? 

6. Do you let poor work stand for good work? The old 

expression, "a slap and a promise," is a bad 
philosophy. 

7. Are you orderly? For orderliness saves time. 

8. When you were little boys and girls were you taught 

to put your playthings away? Do you put your 
books and school material away regularly now? 



HEADS AND HEELS 31 

9. Do you realize that if you keep your belongings in 
orderly fashion you have more time for play as well 
as for work? 

10. Can you read the gas meter and the water meter? 

Are you skillful with hammer and saw? Can you 
polish furniture and remove spots from furniture 
and your clothing? What other helpful things can 
you do in the house? 

11. Are you careful not to mutilate the property or be- 

longings of others? In the school room: books? 
papers? pencils? furniture? Do you waste public 
utilities — water? gas? electricity — or injure city or 
State property? Do you feel responsible for prop- 
erty of others? 

12. Do you see that there are no scraps of paper or food 

left after a picnic? 

Text: 

He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own 
soul; but he that heareth reproof getteth under- 
standing. — Proverbs 15 : 32. 



CHAPTER IV 
HAVE A HEART 

Joe, the fat boy, is one of the most amusing and 
famous of Dickens' minor characters. When Mr. 
Wardle wants Joe's attention he says to his guest, Mr. 
Winkle: "Be good enough to pinch him, sir — in the leg, 
if you please; nothing else wakes him — thank you. Undo 
the hamper, Joe." 

Whereupon, Joe "rolled off the box," and when 
ordered, " 'Come, hand in the eatables,' he jumped up, 
and the leaden eyes, which twinkled behind the moun- 
tainous cheeks, leered horribly upon the food as he un- 
packed it from the basket" — cold fowl, tongues, pigeon 
pie, veal and ham, lobster and salad. 

"Gone to sleep again." — At every chance Joe stuffs 
himself and has to sleep it off like a boa-constrictor. 

" 'Very extraordinary boy, that,' said Mr. Pickwick. 
'Does he always sleep this way?' 

" 'Sleep!' said the old gentleman; 'he's always asleep. 
Goes on errands fast asleep, and snores as he waits at 
table.' 

" 'How very odd !' said Mr. Pickwick. 

" 'Ah! odd indeed,' returned the old gentleman; 'I'm 
proud of that boy — wouldn't part with him on any 
account. He's a natural curiosity!' " 

ANIMALS RULED BY INSTINCT 

Now, Joe, in making eating his only living interest, is 
indeed a curiosity among boys and girls. For them life 

32 



HAVE A HEART 33 

is divided, like all Gaul in your Latin text, into three 
parts — body, mind, and heart — instead of being like an 
animal's — just body. 

Below the level of man. — Animals are principally 
bodies, guided in their self-preservation by instincts that 
at times suggest a mind, but a mind at its best, so far 
below the least of man's, that we can hardly think of 
our dog's being any wiser to-day than the first dog was. 
At times we declare that our loved dog has a heart too, 
that he shows it in a thousand ways. But we change 
our mind when we see him savagely attack a gray 
squirrel, kill it and gloat over its pitiful remains. We 
are horrified at what we call his cruelty. We can hardly 
think of such mad rage as a part of what the psalmist 
means, when he speaks of the beasts of the forest creep- 
ing forth in the darkness to seek their meat from God. 
But we know, when we think about it, that wild beasts 
are not wicked. They do not know what it is to be 
wicked. They feel hunger, and they know that one way 
to satisfy that hunger — is to kill. Only in man's 
warfare is killing done in "cold blood" with planning. 
More's the shame to man! 

Animal's restraint. — Our dog has become "knowing" 
through feeling satisfaction or pain. He is affectionate 
to those he trusts for kindness, wary of those he does 
not know. He has too little knowledge to have any 
understanding, too small a brain to have any of what 
is said to be the greatest thing in the world — a con- 
science. But an animal's restraint oftentimes serves him 
better than does a man's conscience. When human 
beings do those things that are not good for their 
bodies, like overeating, for example, they rank them- 
selves below the animals in intelligence. They show 
the lack of restraint of wild beasts who dare not 



34 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

gorge themselves into a state of helplessness before their 
enemies. 

How instinct restrains even domesticated animals was 
shown in the conduct of a pet dog. He was visiting 
where he had to be kept on his leash in the grape arbor 
and where he was more than abundantly fed by the 
cook. Knowing when he had enough, even of choice 
meat and chicken legs, he refused to eat beyond his need, 
awaiting in impatience the moment he should be free to 
go and bury the extra bones. 

BEYOND INSTINCT 

Such restraint lifts an animal as far as instinct can. It 
still leaves him on the earth, merely self-seeking. It 
takes what he lacks, a mind, to lift you above being only 
one of the gang, up to where you think for the common 
good; then another step to where you think of the good 
of your neighbor for your neighbor's sake. Taking that 
step shows you have a heart. You have sympathy, you 
feel with another. 

Two in one. — Two sorts of influences wrought upon 
Jesus: the man-made city with the daily sight of the 
sordid struggle for existence; the God-made country, 
with its quieter and cleaner life. 

Nazareth was a city where men from the East and 
West came to trade, where camels passed in great 
caravans, from the far coast of the Orient, to exchange 
goods with the merchants from the West, who had 
brought their articles for trade across the seas to Eastern 
ports. In Nazareth the boy Jesus had his mind influenced 
just as boys and girls of to-day are influenced by the 
passing show in our great cities. He saw the passing 
show and understood its small value also, with its low 
standards and opportunity for vice. He had to get 



HAVE A HEART 35 

away to think it out. And so he went apart to be alone 
on the hills above the city. Nazareth supplied the facts; 
the quiet of nature gave the solution. The head was 
answered by the heart. That is why Jesus felt early so 
strongly about his Father's business; that is why he 
learned, as a boy, to seek comfort in nature and to walk 
in the fields, noting the beauty of the lilies, watching 
the life of the birds, seeing God in all his works. 

Always searching for God and searching for inspira- 
tion in God's ways with all his creatures, Jesus came 
back from his retreat with God determined to take up 
his lifework with men. The influence of such close con- 
tact with nature is shown in a way that a boy will under- 
stand in this newspaper story of the "White House 
Owls;" 

Congressmen, deep in discussions involving 
millions and filled with the views of wiseacres, 
paused for a moment to-day to hear what "just 
a kid" had to say about it. 

Members of the House committee concerned 
with the affairs of the District of Columbia, 
heard 15-year-old Jimmie Bradley, of Washing- 
ton, tell why the children want appropriations to 
continue nature study in the schools. 

Armed with letters of approval from President 
Harding, General Pershing, and many other 
notables, Jimmie, who was foreman of the John 
Burroughs Club jury which recently decided the 
White House owls might live, told the committee- 
men that the study of birds and trees and animals 
filled "any regular fellow with a sense of justice." 

It was the first time, so far as the oldest old- 
timer could remember, that a youngster had a 
hearing before a congressional committee. 



36 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Where cross the crowded ways of life, 
Where sound the cries of race and clan, 

Above the noise of selfish strife, 
We hear thy voice, O Son of man ! 

In haunts of wretchedness and need, 
On shadowed thresholds dark with fears, 

From paths where hide the lures of greed, 
We catch the vision of thy tears. 

— Frank Mason North. 

STUDY TOPICS 

i. Give instances of cruelty in animals even though they 
are the pets of the family. Give instances of children 
who are pets in the family but who at times become 
so animal-like that their cruelty is even greater than 
that of the animals. 

2. How does the conscience act when this human cruelty 

takes place? How do mothers and fathers help to 
educate the conscience in little children? 

3. What use should a boy or girl make of conscience? If 

one refuses time after time to obey one's conscience, 
does it remain as good a conscience? 

4. Is there a Lend-a-Hand Society in your town or any 

other society which helps man to get understanding 
through adding sympathy to his knowledge? 

5. In the fine hymn which you have studied what lines 

do you like best? Why? Discuss the two verses, and 
note how each one is a prayer to help us understand 
our fellowmen. 

Text: 

Happy is the man • • . that getteth understand- 
ing. — Proverbs 3: 13. 



CHAPTER V 
THE DOCTOR-PREACHER 

John the Baptist was a mighty preacher. He warned 
and denounced and baptized. Jesus sometimes de- 
nounced but much more often blessed in word and in 
healing. The "understanding' ' that came from his living 
and from the temptations in the wilderness, led Jesus to 
know that he could not make sick people understand 
what he meant by the kingdom of God. They were too 
much occupied with bodily pain to care about the 
present or future good of their souls. They could not 
think of anything but of their mere bodily misery. 

So, from the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus 
began his work of making sick bodies well, and pointed 
the way of healing as the first step toward showing them 
the Kingdom. 

RETAIL AND WHOLESALE 

His way has always been followed to a certain degree. 
The story of the works of mercy and help performed by 
certain "orders" is the bright spot in the history of the 
Church of Rome. The labors of love done only here and 
there by the Sisters of Mercy and the lay brothers, are 
now performed wholesale in social settlements, dis- 
pensaries, medical missions, tubercular camps, hospitals 
for man and beast, by doctors, dentists, Red Cross 
workers without end; and they are all bringing the 
Kingdom nearer. 

The way Jesus worked, — In spite of Christ's show- 

37 



38 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

ing the way — by doing — strangely enough, it has taken 
two thousand years to make us realize that often the 
only kind of practical Christianity for each of us to 
start Christ's kingdom on earth with is to restore health 
to one person, to ourselves first, perhaps. Before Jesus 
was able to show his Father to a man he had sometimes 
to first cure that particular man of blindness; before he 
could make another man hear the story of God's love 
he had first to cure that particular man of deafness; be- 
fore he could get a third man's attention he had first to 
free that man, sick in mind, from the troubles that 
tormented him. 

"One at a time, please." Jesus healed one person at 
one time of one illness; so he did the woman who was 
healed by touching his garment. He never healed by 
the wholesale, never by the crowd. He did not blot out 
all diseases, nor any one disease. He did not stop an 
epidemic, nor cause a throng to be faith-cured. Instead 
of telling a sick person that he was not sick, he healed 
that sick person: first, in order that the healed one, as 
an individual, should feel, in being saved from the misery 
of pain, his personal wish to hope and to have an active 
share in life; and, second, that the healed one should 
see in his Healer the symbol of the living God. 

JESUS DID NOT BLOT OUT DISEASES 

But why did not Christ wipe disease off the earth? 
First, perhaps, because disease is a part of a larger world 
than Jesus came to change. "Think not I am come to 
destroy the law, but to fulfill." Disease is within this 
law of the natural world. It is one of the many things 
included in the plan of life, that, looked at only on the 
surface, seem unlovely. We must learn to recognize 
even germ-disease as a part of the divine plan, just as 



THE DOCTOR-PREACHER 39 

we do the decay in plant and animal that is a necessary 
breaking-down of tissue in a process of using over again, 
which is wholly in keeping with nature's divine way of 
wasting nothing. 

Removal of disease in general would have involved 
the setting aside of the forces of the universe, which are 
God's ways of working. Jesus' ministry came within 
the fulfilling of the law and had one end — to show a 
particular man the way to live in peace and helpfulness 
with his neighbor. 

Learning to live with nature. — But he must, be- 
sides, learn how to live in peace and harmony with his 
neighborhood — with the sun, the rain, the storm, the 
cold. We cannot fight nature. She is too strong for us. 
We must learn to get on with her, fit our ways to her ways 
— use her mighty forces instead of fighting against them. 
So we build a tail to our windmill — to veer the fans into 
the wind, agree with it, else the wind would blow the 
whole mill down instead of pumping our water for us 
or grinding our corn. 

So we do not need to change the laws of nature. We 
cannot kill all the germs nor stop the winds. We must 
simply learn how to agree with the germ and manage 
the winds and live in peace with our neighborhood as 
well as our neighbor. All science is a kind of Christianity 
—how to get on with nature for our health's sake; as 
all Christianity shows how to get on with God and our 
neighbor for our soul's sake. 

ANCIENT HEALTH LAWS 

And it is of great interest to see how interwoven with 
worship of their God are the laws which were plainly 
written into the Jewish code to compel men to honor the 
Creator of their bodies. 



40 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

Jewish laws. — One of the wonders of the Old Testa- 
ment is the wisdom shown by those who wrote into the 
law the rules for diet and cleanliness, for physical and 
moral health. There are rules for preparation of their 
foods, whether meat or grain; for the sorts of things 
they may and may not eat together, the washing of 
vessels, the position of public baths, wash-houses or 
tanneries — all matters of religious consideration, as they 
should be in all civilized countries. 

Greek and Roman laws. — Strange as it may seem, 
aside from the laws concerning health which the Hebrews 
connected with their social and religious life, the nations 
of the world, until this last century, paid little attention 
to the laws of health. Of course the Greeks gave great 
care to the individual body, delighting in its form and 
reveling in its beauty and strength. 

So too though the Romans were famous for personal 
cleanliness, nowhere in their writings do we find any 
special attention paid to public health; the result is that 
the average physical life always remained at a low point 
with the vast majority of Greek and Roman people. 
Even as late as colonial days the "King's Touch" was 
held a cure for scrofula, while receipts to cure smallpox 
and fevers were for the most part based upon the manu- 
facture of powder produced from "baking live toads in 
an earthen pot in the open air." 

In saying that Jesus was subject to his parents, we 
can in imagination picture the boy safeguarded from 
bodily ill by absolute obedience to the carefully detailed 
health rules of his nation, growing handsome and fine in 
his body even while the wondering and oft-time puzzled 
Mary, his mother, kept buried in her heart the strange 
sayings that linked her manger-cradled Son with God 
himself. 



THE DOCTOR-PREACHER 41 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Hark, the voice of Jesus calling: 
"Who will go and work to-day? 
Fields are white, and harvests waiting, 

Who will bear the sheaves away?" 
Loud and long the Master calleth, 

Rich reward he offers free; 
Who will answer, gladly saying, 
"Here am I, send me, send me"? 

Let none hear you idly saying, 
"There is nothing I can do," 
While the souls of men are dying, 

And the Master calls for you: 
Take the task he gives you gladly; 

Let his work your pleasure be; 
Answer quickly when he calleth, 
"Here am I, send me, send me." 

— Daniel March. 

STUDY TOPICS 

1. Find the text, Matthew, chapter 4, and read it. 

2. Can you find the Sea of Galilee on the map? 

3. Name the four brethren whom Jesus called away from 

their fishing to follow him. 

4. And what did he show them? 

5. What was it called when he healed the sick and dying? 

6. Give an instance from the life of Jesus showing him 

bringing joy and gladness; forgiving those who had 
wronged him. 

7. What modern disciples of Jesus are constantly at work 

furthering his kingdom by bringing health to those 
who are sick and dying? 

8. How did Pasteur show his Christlikeness? the Red 

Cross nurse? 



42 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

9. Name the men and women you know who are "carry- 
ing on" the wonderful work begun by Jesus in his 
cures of blindness and deafness, and with men of 
palsy and insane people. 

10. Have you institutions and hospitals in your town 

which are carrying on the work of Jesus ? What have 
you done to help these institutions and hospitals? 
What are their needs? 

11. Can you think of any ways in which you can do a 

service of comfort in your recreation time on Satur- 
day or Sunday? 

Text: 

And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in the 
synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the king- 
dom, and healing all manner of sickness and all 
manner of disease among the people. — Matthew 4 : 23. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE BORN LEADER 

Jesus possessed the qualities essential for leadership: 
open-mindedness, critical judgment, vision, and courage. 
He saw much; he understood what he saw; he imagined; 
he dared. He was born a leader, safe and sane. We may- 
be sure that Jesus' body did not hinder his work. It 
was a healthy and fit dwelling place for his mind. His 
mind was also healthy and had a good cutting edge, 
made keener by reflection. He thought while he learned, 
and came to know more than he was taught. Much of 
his wisdom came out of the acquaintance with familiar 
things that all leaders must know. He dared say what 
he thought, because he believed he was right. His belief 
in himself led others to trust him. 

GROWING INTO LEADERSHIP 

Jesus did not assume leadership until he was thirty 
years old — a man old enough to be safe and young 
enough to be enthusiastic. He was neither rash nor 
timid. He had seen enough of life to know how all sorts 
and conditions of men think and live at their best and 
at their worst. He had lived that wholesome boy's life 
close to nature that keeps a boy sensitive and alert in 
body. Jesus knew the habits of wild creatures, the 
haunts and properties of the wild flowers. 

Breadth. — This lore of the out-of-doors kept him 
simple while it made him intelligent, and it comforted 
him for the artificiality of trafficking Nazareth. It gave 
him a sense of justice. It was a great thing that when 

43 



44 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

he needed to get away from the crowd he could quickly 
mount through Nazareth's narrow streets to the highest 
plateau of the hills and look out upon a scene of grandeur 
that stretched away on all sides. Moreover, Jesus was 
rich in the Old-Testament learning that made up the 
whole of education to a Jew of his time. 

Courage. — Of the courage that means ability to stand 
against a whole world of differing belief, Jesus is, in life 
and death, the supreme example. He was the embodi- 
ment of the courage that fears not those that have 
power to kill the body, for he had become fully per- 
suaded in his own mind what the purpose of his life was 
to be; and, knowing that he had to give an account of 
himself to God, he reckoned mere physical suffering as 
naught. 

Sensitiveness. — But the wounds of a friend meant 
to Jesus what they mean to any other being of fine 
sensitiveness. They drew drops of blood and the cry, 
"Let this cup pass." Of all his qualities that fitted him 
for leadership this sensitiveness was perhaps the most 
essential. His own fine feeling was the source of his 
imagination. Without imagination there could not have 
been the human sympathy that in him binds man to God. 

LEADERSHIP THAT LASTS 

To-day we are able to see what the leadership, inspira- 
tion, and direct commands of Jesus have actually 
amounted to. Not always do we recognize that he is the 
leader. Not always do we know that the good work is 
being done through his direct inspiration; but all the 
time, year in and year out, century in and century out, 
here a little, there a little, his promise has been kept. 

"For without me you can do nothing." His word has 
always been present in every free-will act of selflessness, 



THE BORN LEADER 45 

not because we have chosen him, but because he has 
graciously chosen us to be his agents, doing the work 
he came to do. 

Circling the earth. — "Heal the sick." How far has 
Jesus' example as healer of the sick reached? Let the 
hospitals and the dispensaries answer. More effectively 
than in his own time, in far Galilee, does Jesus work to- 
day through doctor and nurse supported by gifts of 
Christian men and women. When we read about the 
world-wide research work of scientists for discovering 
the nature and cure of disease, we begin to realize how 
far the spirit of Jesus has gone toward circling the 
earth. 

"Cleanse the lepers." — Since that day when Jesus 
felt the touch of the hand of the leper on the hem of his 
garment, what has his spirit been doing for lepers? 
Answer: Father Damien. How have fevers and mental 
diseases been humanely treated by disciples who have 
followed in his footsteps and longed to cast out devils — 
devils of drunkenness and passion, epilepsy and insanity! 
The study of cause and cure of disease that is going on 
not only in our own country but all over the world is 
spoken of as scientific investigation and scientific treatment. 
What is science but "the Spirit of Truth" which pro- 
ceedeth from the Father? "He shall testify of me, and 
ye shall also bear witness!" 

World without end. — But why this search for truth? 
Why attempt to cure these people? Why care? Why try 
to relieve this suffering? Because we must bear witness, 
because He has chosen us to bear fruit. Jesus worked 
among the deaf, the dumb, the blind. Do we not find 
his leadership still alive, alive and very active in this 
twentieth century, in the schools for the training of every 
sort of afflicted people? The Comforter, through educa- 



46 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

tion, brings to them the satisfaction of work and play 
and love and worship, so that through their school work 
they forget their handicaps and rejoice that they have 
been made in the divine image, with gifts of the Spirit 
in their nature that prompt them to pass on to others 
what they can spare from their own broken lives. 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Dare to do right! Dare to be true! 
You have a work that no other can do; 
Do it so bravely, so kindly, so well, 
Angels will hasten the story to tell. 

Chorus 

Dare, dare, dare to do right! 
Dare, dare, dare to be true! 
Dare to do right, dare to be true! 

Dare to do right! Dare to be true! 
Other men's failures can never save you. 
Stand by your conscience, your honor, your faith; 
Stand like a hero and battle till death. 

STUDY TOPICS 

i. In what ways is the leadership of Jesus a challenge and 
an example? 

2. What are the qualities of a good leader to-day? Are 

the same qualities necessary for leadership in a boy 
in school as those for a man in business? 

3. Is a woman successful outside her home likely to have 

the same qualities as the mother successful with her 
children ? 

4. What is real leadership, in a school like this, for both 

boys and girls? 



THE BORN LEADER 47 

5. Is standing by your honor, your conscience, and your 

faith likely to make a hero of you? 

6. What does the line, "Keep the great judgment seat 

always in view" mean to you in everyday life? 

7. Is your conscience every year growing more and more 

a judgment seat before which you bring your con- 
duct and character for criticism? 

8. Look up the story of Father Damien. 

Text: 

To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear 
his voice; and he calleth his own sheep by name, and 
leadeth them out. 

And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth 
before them, and the sheep follow him: for they 
know his voice. — John 10: 3, 4. 



CHAPTER VII 

HEALTH AND HEAVEN 

The Great War revealed many terrible things still 
afflicting human nature, things that we thought were 
almost cured. It was an awful shock to our easy con- 
science and complacency to know that men could plan 
to put through, in this late day, so hideous a thing as 
world conquest at any cost, even at the cost of civiliza- 
tion itself. America, as soon as she knew that this was 
the plan of the enemy, sprang to arms as the only way 
to meet the foe. 

PHYSICALLY UNPREPARED 

Then we Americans had a sight of our physical unfit- 
ness that fairly staggered us, if it did not the whole 
world. Every fourth man who came up for examination 
under the selective draft law was found physically unfit 
for his part in the World War. Some defect or disease 
made every fourth man a candidate for a hospital rather 
than a battle line; and actually, before this nation could 
fight, it had to be physically cured. The cost in money 
of this curing was enormous, the cost in time and power 
was appalling. Many could never be cured. 

Now, if this is the condition among young men at the 
very prime of life, what must be the constant loss in 
money and accomplishment among all of us the country 
over? Surely, sick people can never bring in the king- 
dom of heaven, nor do any first-rate work of any kind. 
We must learn the morality of being well; and we must 
learn the efficiency of keeping well, as well as the economy 

48 



HEALTH AND HEAVEN 49 

and joy of it. Every day in the year three millions of 
our people in the United States are sick. 

Jesus' way. — "Heal the sick" was the first order 
Jesus gave his disciples as he sent them out to preach 
the gospel — the "good news" — of the better mind and 
the better spirit that were to lead to a better body for the 
sick and afflicted. And more and more the foreign mis- 
sionaries are finding that to "get results" they must 
follow Jesus' way exactly — of first healing those they 
would convert. So now the medical missionary often 
goes first; the teaching missionary, second; and the 
preaching missionary goes third. To be wholly effective 
all three must often be combined in one. 

In Jesus' healing and restoring to physical vigor we 
have a foreshadowing of what his first disciples would 
always have to make a large part of their work. To get 
a full understanding of the practical side of Jesus' mis- 
sion, read at one sitting those three chapters of Matthew, 
— the fifth, sixth, and seventh — that make up the Ser- 
mon on the Mount. Then turn back to the twentieth 
chapter of Exodus to see how Jesus dared add his 
gospel of physical and social health to those sacred 
commandments of God for promoting individual health 
that were given through Moses to the Israelites in the 
wilderness. 

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AND THE COMMANDMENTS 

The Commandments were the old revelation of what 
should be man's attitude toward God and toward his 
fellow men. They were mostly donHs. The only com- 
mandment that was not given as prohibition or warning 
is the fifth, called "the commandment with promise," 
which urges the honoring of father and mother as a 
possible condition of long life. The other nine are "Thou 



5o LIVING AT OUR BEST 

shalt nots," together making up what up to Jesus' time 
was the most nearly perfect expression known as a guide 
to the conduct of man. They are still as flawless in form 
as when they came from the hand of God. But they are 
"don'ts," and are cold. 

It took Jesus' "Do unto others as ye would that men 
should do to you" to complete the old law and warm it 
up and start the world on a better way. Among other 
things to do, Jesus bade his followers to love their 
enemies and to do good in return for evil and to see them- 
selves blessed in being meek, modest, and merciful; in 
being pure in heart, or poor in spirit; in being peace- 
makers or those persecuted for righteousness' sake. These 
are altogether a new set of virtues from those negative 
ones of the tables of stone, which bade the faithful to 
keep from doing offense. 

The new commandment. — The teaching of the new 
commandment was to suffer without hitting back, and, 
more than all else, go out of your way to do good. The 
old way of being good was to abstain from evil. It was 
the way of the Levite who passed by on the other side from 
the man who had fallen among thieves. The new way 
was to do: as it says in the tenth chapter of Matthew, 
where Jesus bids his disciples to go preach that the king- 
dom of heaven is at hand, and adds, without a pause, 
"Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast 
out devils: freely ye have received, freely give." It 
sounds almost as if health and heaven were one, as, in- 
deed, to the sick they seem to be. 

Later he said to his disciples, 

I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth 
in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much 
fruit. 



HEALTH AND HEAVEN 51 

The fruit of well bodies and clean souls is meant. And 
he goes on further to say, 

Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you 
and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth 
fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that what- 
soever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he 
may give it you. 

Again, the fruit was healing bodies, minds, and souls. 

The Comforter. — Moreover, he promised them the 
Comforter that is to come, "whom I will send unto you 
from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which pro- 
ceedeth from the Father. . . ." 

It has been nearly two thousand years since Jesus 
lived among his disciples. Has the promise been kept? 
Has the Comforter come? Whether we call the Com- 
forter the Holy Ghost or the Spirit of Love or the Spirit 
of Truth really matters but little in comparison with 
whether the promise is being kept. One generation of 
disciples after another has been trying to express the 
Holy Spirit. "He was the vine and they the branches." 
They, like the new growth in a grape vine, bore the fruit, 
and are still bearing it. One century after another has 
found many men who were ready, like James and John 
and Peter, to try in their human way to carry out com- 
mands which Jesus made in those three short years while 
he preached his strange doctrine of love and helpfulness. 
The carrying out of his commands restores the sick — 
some of them sick of body; others, sick of mind; still 
others, sick of soul. The healing of one often restores all 
three. To-day it may take the family doctor to start 
the cure, the specialist to hasten it, and the minister to 
complete it, but all are "bringing forth fruit" as Jesus 
told his followers to do. 



52 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

MEMORY QUOTATION 
Strength and Grace 

The oaks are green, the maples gay, 

The blithe birds sing the bright day long; 

The pines are green and gay as they, 
And full of murmuring song. 

The oaks are bare, the maples stark; 

The birds to warmer lands have flown; 
The pines are green and singing — Hark ! 

Their song makes sweeter moan. 

For summer rich and winter lean, 

O pine-tree stalwart, straight and strong, 

Give me the strength that keeps thee green, 
The grace that gives thee song. 

— Dallas Lore Sharp. 

STUDY TOPICS 

i. Why do we still need "don'ts"? 

2. How far can we do away with "don'ts"? 

3. What "don'ts" have you already outgrown? 

4. Why is "understanding" necessary before a child can 

do away with "don'ts"? 

5. What "do's" have become second nature to you? 

6. As we become able and willing to follow the thoughts 

of Jesus are we becoming his disciples? 

7. What was his charge to the disciples? 

8. What is a charge? Look in the dictionary for the 

"charge" to the jury. 

9. In what way are you a practical disciple — giving 

time or money to institutions which need your 
assistance? 
10. Have you ever carried out the charge of Jesus to his 
disciples in connection with any hospital where you 



HEALTH AND HEAVEN 53 

have sent flowers? (It is in such simple ways that 

one begins to fulfill the work set forth by Jesus for 

his disciples to cany on.) 
n. Just what did Jesus say about the Comforter's 

coming? 
12. Is it just as important for the nation to have men 

and women of strong bodies in times of peace as in 

times of war? Are you building your body so you 

could pass for "service"? 

Text: 

And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of 
heaven is at hand. 

Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, 
cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. 
— Matthew 10: 7, 8. 



CHAPTER VIII 

"THE CARD ON THE HOUSE" 

"There's a card on the house," one of the children 
whispered as we rode by. The very whisper was full of 
awe and fear. The red card, telling all who approached 
that scarlet fever was in that house, burned like the eye 
of some terrible animal in the dark. 

MEMBERS ONE OF ANOTHER 

That card is something belonging to this later day, 
and this later thing that it stands for is "community 
feeling." We have learned that in sickness the whole 
community is one, that the sickness of any member is 
the possible sickness of all. 

So we isolate that sick person if the disease is "catch- 
ing," and we put a card near the door to warn all comers 
away — not for the sake of the sick person, but for the 
sake of the well persons. The people in that house of 
sickness, and the doctor attending the patient, and the 
board of health of that town, all work together to pro- 
tect the well persons from getting the disease. 

For the common good. — That is a great advance in 
social well-being. When that same spirit takes hold of 
the good things to help everybody in the neighborhood 
to get a share of them — "to pass them around" — as it 
now takes hold of the evil things to keep everybody from 
getting any of them — then heaven will not be far away 
from earth, and we shall have replaced the Old-Testa- 

54 



"THE CARD ON THE HOUSE" 55 

ment standard of not harming by the New-Testament 
standard of helping. 

Our value as persons is measured by just how far we 
take our part as living, sharing, working members of 
our home, school, or community. 

In reality there is no such case as a human, living 
being that equals zero, unless he be so complete a hermit 
as to be beyond any human relationship. Even one who 
stands silent on the side-lines, watching a tug-of-war, 
expresses something by his very presence. The interest 
that draws him to watch the contest counts him one in 
the crowd at least. He is an influence in the all-pull- 
together for or against his own side. 

Community value. — In like way you are bound to be 
a part of the community health program. Whether you 
are positive or negative in supporting health measures, 
you can never be without influence over the lives of those 
about you, since you may, at least, be a means of passing 
on a contagious disease, even without yourself suffering 
from it. 

INDIVIDUALITY OF DISEASE 

Every disease is as individual as any species of animal 
or plant in its growth. Particular laws govern the ap- 
pearance, spread, or check of each sort of disease. Clean- 
liness is almost a preventive of most diseases. But few 
persons outside of those trained in "hospital cleanliness" 
know the meaning of the word "clean" any more than 
they do of how much is required in toilsome and per- 
sistent study to find out the nature of a given disease 
and the way to prevent its spread. 

Typhoid germs can be spread only by neglect to care 
properly for body waste. This is done most often by 
throwing the waste, which contains the germs from a 



56 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

sick person where it can find its way into drinking water, 
either by means of wells or streams, or into milk through 
use of infected water in the process of cleaning the 
containers. 

Preventive treatment. — More is being done than 
ever before to discover the secrets of preventive treat- 
ment and turn them into wholesale life-saving. Many 
an investigator has found that his way of "living unto 
the Lord" involves a life spent in a laboratory, studying 
a particular disease germ and the problem of how to 
make it harmless. This is one way to bear another's 
burden. 

Perhaps doing your part of "bearing" consists in 
helping to bring the kingdom of heaven to pass through 
the ministry of preventive treatment and so keeping 
many persons from having fevers instead of curing a few 
that do have them. The question, Which is greater, 
prevention or cure? is answered by the old saying, "An 
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" — a saying 
that was coined long before modern preventive medicine 
was dreamed of. 

But perhaps your part of "bearing," as a sign of love 
to your neighbor, is to find out how all things in nature 
may work together for good to those who love God by 
serving their fellow men. In time you may be the means 
through science of showing a way to meet and over- 
come some of those forces which are called evil only 
because we cannot control them yet. Investigators are 
gradually finding a cure for one disease after another 
that attacks plant, animal, or man. Nature's cure is in 
nature. And God is working through nature even before 
our eyes. 



"THE CARD ON THE HOUSE" 57 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Fight the good fight with all thy might, 
Christ is thy strength, and Christ thy right ; 
Lay hold on life, and it shall be 
Thy joy and crown eternally. 

Run the straight race through God's good grace, 
Lift up thine eyes, and seek his face; 
Life with its way before us lies, 
Christ is the path, and Christ the prize. 

— John 5. B. Monsell. 



STUDY TOPICS 

1. According to to-day's lesson no one can live for him- 

self only, yet we find many selfish persons in the 
world. Explain the reason for this. 

2. What is real selfishness? 

3. What is selflessness? 

4. How can you develop yourself so that you may be of 

value to your school and community? 

5. Name some of the great personages of the world who 

have highly developed their powers for the sake of 
humanity. 

6. Look up in the encyclopedia the story of Buddha and 

note his selflessness. Also look for the cause of the 
failure which the Prophet of Islam met as he 
established Mohammedanism. Also try to discuss 
what Confucius thought of the selfishness of people 
in his Code of Ethics. 

7. After examining the characteristics concerning the 

selflessness of these great religious leaders, compare 
what you have obtained with your knowledge of 
the self-forgetfulness of Jesus, and at the same time 
his perfect selfness — for he was supremely a great 
soul even in the moment of sacrifice. 



58 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

8. What is your community value? How much are you 

worth to your neighbors? 
o. In what other ways than health have you begun to 

take part in living for others? 

10. Think of the men and women whom you know who 

are "all-pull-together" kind of people. Are the boys 
and girls that you play with the "pull-together" 
kind of girls and boys who are on the side of good 
rather than working with a gang that carries 
mischief over into misdemeanor? 

11. What does it mean to "lay hold on life"? 

12. Make a list of the men whom you know who have 

laid hold on life and helped bear one another's 
burdens — doctors, ministers, school-teachers, one 
after another. Men of service are living about you 
who fight the good fight. It is right that we should 
recognize them as disciples of Christ. 

13. It is said by health authorities that of the three million 

people sick in our midst on any day in the year, 
fully one half might have kept well by obeying the 
simplest laws of right living. What lessons can you 
draw from this? 

Text: 

For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth 
to himself. 

For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and 
whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we 
live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.— Romans 
14:7,8. 



CHAPTER IX 
THE COATED TONGUE 

"Hello, Sonny! So you aren't feeling quite up to 
scratch! Too much swimming and green apples, hey? 
Well, well, too bad ! Now, first, let me see your tongue. 
Coated, eh? Now for your wrist!" 

The doctor runs you over with his practiced eye, and, 
turning to your mother, says, "A little fever — nothing 
alarming, but we'd better keep Sonny in bed for a day 
or two, for that coated tongue is a sure sign of something 
wrong somewhere inside." 

THE KING'S ENGLISH 

And just so with another kind of coated tongue — the 
tongue that uses the poor street talk; that is a sure sign 
of something wrong somewhere inside of your home or 
school or both, a sure sign of mental or educational ill 
health. 

Words fitly spoken. — A clean tongue uses the King's 
English — the pure, fine, apt words of our language, one 
of the most powerful and beautiful languages in the 
world. For there can be no great leadership in America 
without great command of good English. "Never spake 
man like this man," they said of Jesus. One of his most 
wonderful powers was his ability to use clean, pointed, 
lovely language. This is something we must all work to 
acquire, for, as Solomon says, "A word fitly spoken is 
like apples of gold in pictures of silver." What one lad's 
"better English" was to him (and might be to you), you 
can find out in The Americanization of Edward Bok, a 

59 



60 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

book that might well lead your own Christmas book list. 
Chapters five and six, which tell of Edward's trip, his 
"summer vacation, taken in the winter," to New Eng- 
land when he was still in his teens, should be more stirring 
to any American boy or girl than the Arabian Nights or 
Robinson Crusoe. 

It was young Bok's appealing use of vivid English 
that most of all brought courtesy and friendship to him 
from the great New-England writers, Dr. Holmes and 
Longfellow, Phillips Brooks, and from the great in every 
walk of life, whether generals, Presidents, or preachers. 
Not only his bright, earnest, eager ways won him friends, 
but more than all else his frank, intelligent, healthy, 
healthful speech — in tone, enunciation, and word choice. 

WHAT JESUS TALKED ABOUT 

Jesus was what we should all call a good talker. For 
three years he went about talking on just one subject: 
how people should live together in helpful love before 
saying anything about their love to God. "First be 
reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer thy 
gift." For the three years the interest in this new kind 
of love grew so much that those who did not believe 
such talk "safe" succeeded in putting the talker to death, 
even though the crowd heard him gladly. 

They heard him gladly even if only because he was a 
clever talker. Read how he made the lawyer, who had 
come to catch him, answer his own question, "Who is 
my neighbor?" and define neighbor as "he that showed 
mercy," in that story in the tenth chapter of Luke. 

Jesus had a keen mind as well as a tender heart. The 
great number of familiar sayings of his that in transla- 
tion have become the stock phrases of English speech 
prove how true it is that never man spake like this Man. 



THE COATED TONGUE 61 

The use of the parable. — But while we cannot help 
using his words, Jesus' manner of speaking in parables 
has seemed almost too sacred to be made use of, except 
rarely, in speech or writing. This use of parables enabled 
Jesus to talk directly to the conscience of the individual, 
but left the individual to make his own application of 
the story. "A sower went forth to sow" could hurt no 
one's feelings, but could make a very personal appeal 
through its story interest. So to Jesus speech was an 
art — in his use the divinest art known to man. It was 
something worth his taking thought for. 

Typical sayings. — Study his words as words, his 
figures of speech, his plain, simple, earnest utterances as 
of one who has something to say, something he believes 
in devoutly, and something he must make very plain, so 
that all who hear may understand. Where else in 
human speech is anything so beautiful as "Suffer little 
children," "In my Father's house," "The lilies of the 
field," "All thine are mine," "Father, the hour is come," 
"In the world ye shall have tribulations, but be of good 
cheer, I have overcome the world"? Where will you 
find anything so brave, so simple, as, when, in the hour 
of betrayal, Jesus asked, "Whom seek ye?" and they 
answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth," Jesus said unto 
them, "I am he"? 

Such simple honesty and dignity gives meaning to his 
urging that talk be "aye, aye and nay, nay — swearing 
by nothing." But Jesus could be forceful as well as 
simple, as, where in that marvelous prayer to God in 
behalf of his disciples, John 17, he says, "Those that 
thou gavest me I have kept, . . . and none of them 
is lost, but the son of perdition [Judas]," hastening to 
soften it by adding, "that the scriptures might be 
fulfilled." 



62 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

Committing his words to memory. — If you are 

really to know Jesus Christ, you must learn, word for 
word, much of what he said, because only by saying his 
words as well as thinking his thoughts can you truly 
know him whose speech was, indeed, the "shadow of 
his character." 

SPEECH THE SHADOW OF CHARACTER 

If you wish your speech, as shadow of your character, 
to do you credit, you will have to make it, first, correct 
in English form; second, exact in choice of words — as a 
mechanic would select a particular tool; third, strong, 
solidly built up as a piece of steel structure; fourth, fine 
in tone as a lovely song. 

Jazz talk. — Much of the speech we hear is just the 
cheap "jazz" talk made up of an incoherent jumble of 
words and phrases that are about as much like "the 
King's English" — which is fit English in which to address 
the King — as a pile of old boards is like a house. The 
origin of the very word "slang" is suggestive. It comes 
from the Norwegian Slengja Kjeften — "sling the jaw," 
meaning, using abusive language. A person uses a word 
or a phrase in a new and striking way. He is admired 
for his originality and the form is copied until his bright 
saying becomes, repeated till the thousand-thousandth 
time, little more than a parrot's talk — hit or miss in its 
application. In time "good" slang becomes part of 
English speech, while "poor" slang survives in the alleys 
or is lost. The greatest objection to the use of slang is 
that it makes your talk just like every other boy's or 
girl's. You have no speech distinction, and in time your 
whole talk is a set of street terms bounded by "sure" 
and "gee" if you are a boy, and by "a peach" and "a 
scream" if you are a girl. 



THE COATED TONGUE 63 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Lord, speak to me, that I may speak 

In living echoes of thy tone. 
As thou hast sought, so let me seek, 

Thy erring children lost and lone. 

O teach me, Lord, that I may teach 
The precious things thou dost impart; 

And wing my words, that they may reach 
The hidden depths of many a heart. 

— Frances R. Havergal. 

STUDY TOPICS 

1. As we talk with strangers, why are we careful of our 

speech ? 

2. Why, when writing to our friends, are we particular 

about our choice of words? 

3. Why is plain, simple, earnest address so important? 

4. What authors do you read again and again because 

you like their way of saying things? 

5. Name any other books that convey to you in any 

measure the same simple, direct qualities as those 
contained in the Bible. 

6. How about your speech at home? at school? on the 

playground? Is it always clean? Does it give you 
,a good character? Place yourself among those who 
speak as if they had birth and rearing, that is, among 
well-bred, well-spoken people. Do you try to speak 
intelligently, correctly, worthy of the best your birth 
can call for, or are you willing to be judged by street 
talk — incorrect, crude, coarse, profane, guttural? 

Text: 

The officers answered, Never man spake like this 
man. — John 7: 46. 



CHAPTER X 

WHO ARE YOU ? 

Along with your character there goes your personality, 
which is the single outstanding quality, or the combina- 
tion of qualities, that makes up you, and which is essen- 
tial to success, whatever way you plan to make your 
living, whether as doctor, artisan, teacher, or otherwise. 

YOU YOURSELF 

Occasionally a personality seems expressed in one 
word. That word may be kindliness, aggressiveness, 
frankness, open-mindedness, or narrow-mindedness. In 
ordinary cases personality must first be expressed in 
looks and manners — in dress, walk, facial expression, 
speech, voice — the characteristics that stand out so 
strongly as to make the only you to the passing acquain- 
tance, however different you may be to your close friends. 

The first "you." — Does your clothing express your 
mind as well as your taste? Or is it an accident — not you 
at all, because perhaps you are not free to choose it? Is 
your walk the result of wearing wrong shoes? of much 
free walking and play? Or, if a girl, of high-heeled 
hobbling with the mincing step of self-consciousness? 
Again, as a girl, do you need a veil to hide your skin? 
Or, whether boy or girl, does its natural, clean freshness 
and warm glow of health make glad the day for the 
stranger who meets you swinging along to school? 

If you opened your mouth would your voice, in tone 
and quality, and your words as well, belie to the stranger 

64 



WHO ARE YOU? 65 

your good taste as expressed in dress? Would your 
speech be your worst enemy or your best friend? Finally, 
do you carry about with you a face of glowing cheer that 
would make appropriate "Sunny Jim" or "Sunshine" for 
your nickname? Or is it with a "vinegar aspect" that 
you forward face the world? 

The second "you." — Then, if you were on your way 
to apply for a position to the very person you had met 
on your morning walk, you would each look the other 
over for a further valuation. Your possible employer 
would estimate your fitness for his service quite regard- 
less of the first impression of your attractiveness or un- 
attractiveness. Now, the questions are: Is your dress 
suitable? Is your voice well modulated? Do your feet 
and your hands and hair serve their purpose as feet and 
hands and hair or do they point like signposts to a freak 
brain? Then, your manners: Do you know the pro- 
prieties? Do you make use of what you know of polite 
usage, and do you care enough about the conventions to 
take pains to meet them, regarding them as so much 
necessary oil on the social waters? Are you quick to 
take a hint on a point of etiquette? Are you tactful as 
well as kind in your heart? Are you truly well bred, 
caring to be so, as well as to appear so? Do you know 
that "manners are the man" — and the woman too — and 
the boy and girl as well? 

The real "you." — Before your case is settled your 
possible employer will have more serious things to con- 
sider than to think whether he could do his best work 
with you in the same room or even in the next room. 
How far could you go toward meeting his need? Before 
all else, ready intelligence of the sort he is willing to pay 
for measures your worth to him. Ability to write a 
letter that does credit to his office, a letter that in form, 



66 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

phrase, and spelling is better than he knows he could 
write, will be of more consequence than the length of 
your skirt or the crease in your trousers, more than the 
quality even of your temper or of your manners. 

"Quickness in the uptake" will sometimes give you a 
new business value, just as will the perseverance that 
promptly places you among the skilled ones who do while 
others are hesitating. Meanwhile, by knowing what you 
want, you are quick of decision where a choice is to be 
made and quick in deciding how the thing is to be done. 
This quick decision is the mainspring of initiative which 
soon means working for yourself — sailing under your 
own canvas. You have become master of yourself, a 
leader that proves his capacity for leadership by carry- 
ing out his plans. 



Now, provided with education and personality, and 
backed by the character that means the honesty, faith- 
fulness, and loyalty essential to business life, one thing 
more is most desirable — health. Without a sound body 
there cannot be fullness of life, even though many great 
men have been invalids. Darwin was an invalid; Edison 
is deaf; but still Darwin was able to do a full man's 
work, and so is Edison. But only unusual gifts in some 
particular direction could have made up for their physical 
defects. And who can say how much more work, how 
much better work, these men might have done had they 
not been handicapped by ill-health? On the other hand, 
how many times has not this same physical handicap 
operated to develop other powers, often higher ones, than 
those that the invalid might in full health have cultivated? 

Good vitality. — But, in spite of many exceptions, 
health may be reckoned as essential to success. Your 



WHO ARE YOU? 67 

employer demands literally a clean bill of health. 
He knows that without health your enthusiasm would 
be lacking, your temper might be irritable, your strength 
give out at a critical moment, and you would be a 
weight to his work — about as valuable as a stalled 
elevator. Reasonably he expects you to observe the 
rules making for health: suitable food, abundant water 
inside and out, fresh air and plenty of outdoor exercise, 
and the rules for safeguarding against illness which have 
for the corner stone regular sleep of eight hours in the 
twenty-four for "grown-ups," nine hours, for those 
under fourteen. 

Social health. — Besides physical health you must 
have the social health which is expressed in wholesome 
friendships. In order to be your complete self, surely 
you must have friends. You must be a friend to many. 
The man who "flocks alone" is not for business. Just 
as their fathers and mothers like to get together to com- 
pete and to compare notes, so do boys and girls. Some 
of those we enjoy most are those who stimulate our 
thinking, or our ambition, or our daring. What sort of 
an assemblage would your best friends make? Do they 
do your taste credit? Do you do credit to their taste? 
Are you loyal? Are they loyal in time of need? Are 
they friends you will wish to keep always? Do both you 
and they realize that the right sort of friends go far to 
help us live at our best? 

MEMORY QUOTATION 
Personality 

Now what is your niche in the mind of the boy 

Who met you yesterday? 
He figured you out and labeled you, 

And carefully filed you away. 



68 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

Are you on the list as one to respect, 

Or one to be ignored? 
Does he think you're the kind that's sure to win, 

Or the kind that's quickly floored? 

The things you said — were they those that stick, 

Or the kind that fade and die? 
The story you told — did you tell it your best ? 

If not, I wonder why? 

Your knowledge of things in this world of ours — 
Did you make that knowledge clear? 

Did you make it sound to the listener 
As though it were good to hear? 

Did you mean right down in your heart of hearts 
The things that you then expressed? 

Or — was it the word of a better boy 
In a clumsier language dressed? 

Think! What is your niche in the mind of the boy 

Who met you yesterday, 
Who figured you out and labeled you, 

And carefully filed you away? 

— Adapted from Author Unknown. 

STUDY TOPICS 

i. Washington, Lincoln, Webster, Joan of Arc, Florence 
Nightingale, Mary Lyon: name others whose 
leadership and great ideas have made them famous, 
but who would not have been so famous had they 
not been gifted with "personality." Other persons 
have been famous — Galileo, Newton, Watts the 
inventor, and Watts the great painter— but the 
world knows them less through their personality 
than for their work. 



WHO ARE YOU? 69 

2. The important thing in to-day's lesson is the value of 

personality. Besides being a good girl or a good 
boy, have you the personality that makes others 
want to be good? 

3. Can personality be cultivated? 

4. Do the things you say stand for yourself or for some- 

one else? 

5. Is your talk convincing? Is your knowledge exact? 

6. Is your heart so true that "what you say is the positive 

truth"? 

7. What great personalities have inspired you? 

8. What characteristics are the outstanding ones of these 

personalities? 

9. Sir Philip Sidney was called by Queen Elizabeth, 

1 'the jewel of my dominions . ' ' What is the meaning 
of Sir Philip's definition of a gentleman, "high 
erected thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy"? 
10. What kind of personality do you think Jesus had? 
What is the evidence? 

Text: 

Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like 
men, be strong. — 1 Corinthians 16: 13. 



II 

WEALTH OF MONEY, TIME, OPPORTUNITY 



CHAPTER XI 
THE LABORER IS WORTHY OF HIS HIRE 

The first group of chapters in Living at Our Best takes 
up "Health," under the three heads, namely, physical, 
mental, and spiritual — the health of yourself, your home, 
your school and your neighborhood, whether country, 
village, town, or city. It may be summed up as body- 
mind-and-soul wealth, while this section may be summed 
up as financial health. 

We now want to consider material wealth, the reason 
for earning our living, how to choose the way of earning 
our living, and how to share that living generously with 
others while serving our best needs. In America we have 
a way of saying, "What does he do?" implying that every 
man is expected to work at some particular thing. We 
regard it as honorable, besides usually being necessary, 
that a man have "a visible means of support," even 
though he do no more than to take care of the fortune 
left him. 

Let all work. — This expecting a man to work is one 
of the best signs of our nation's health. Work alone can 
save us from that dangerous division into classes of 
workers, idlers, and those who "live by their wits." 
American women more and more are finding, as Ameri- 
can men always have done, that earning a living may be 
the best game in the world. The game is worth more 
than the money earned, which often from a distance 
seems the only reward for work. The reward is in the 

73 



74 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

very doing of something which exercises muscles and 
brains that were meant to be used. 

EARNING AWAKENS RESPONSIBILITY 

One of the most valuable by-products of earning is the 
sense of responsibility it awakens. 

The slacker brother. — A young man who has lately 
brought disgrace to his highly esteemed family is less 
concerned than his family or friends. He has left it to 
them to keep him out of prison. His manner said, "If 
you don't want a jail bird in your family, you had 
better look alive!" 

What is the trouble with this young man? Simply 
this: he has never taken his part in helping to keep up 
the home, left without a head through the father's early 
death. He fell back on the others to hold the family 
together. Loyal family pride and generous spirit held 
them to keeping up appearances and giving the idler a 
good time. And now in order to save this petted brother 
from being "sent up," the family has to pay court costs 
and lawyer's fees out of the savings that were to buy a 
Ford. Meanwhile their mother is prostrated and the 
family closet is provided forever with a "skeleton" by 
one who does not know the price of home and an honor- 
able place in the world. 

The love of money. — Paul said, "The love of money 
is the root of all evil." This, of course, means the love 
of money for its own sake, or the prizing it above things 
which should come ahead of it. Money stands only for 
the power to possess things we desire, things which often 
are neither good nor bad in themselves, but are good or 
bad only as they are used ill or well. Money is a great 
good, but we must guard against acting as if money 
were the root of all good, since it is only a convenient way 



THE LABORER IS WORTHY OF HIS HIRE 75 

of letting a small thing in our pocket stand ready to be 
changed for the thing we want, whether it is a book or a 
concert ticket, a draft horse or an airplane. Money is 
only an exchange. 

PHYSICAL LIFE THE FOUNDATION OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 

Did you ever wonder how it happened that Jesus 
chose to earn his living by a trade that kept him living 
as a workman with ordinary people instead of becoming 
at once a boy-preacher like boy-preachers of recent 
years? Why did this Jesus of Nazareth not begin at 
twelve instead of at thirty to build his "temple not 
made with hands'? Simply because he was not ready. 
He knew that he had to make his physical life the basis 
for his spiritual life in order to understand and to sym- 
pathize with the feelings of those he wished to help; and 
that he must have all his powers of mind and soul at 
their best before he was ready to undertake his work in 
the world. 

A man among men. — Jesus knew that his own 
"kingdom of righteousness, " which he had come to 
establish, would be best helped on by his living and doing 
the day's work of a real everyday man. He was content 
to be a man among men, to do his day's work, and to 
take his day's pay. As a practical man who knew what 
he had to say and how to say it to the kind of people 
who made up his hearers, he used the flowers, birds, and 
people at their tasks to illustrate his talk. 

It is out of this very experience as a worker and an 
earner that he urged his disciples to go their ways as 
laborers to the harvest and to expect hospitality among 
those they helped, since the laborer for the Kingdom is 
worthy of his hire — his pay envelope — just as he himself, 
the carpenter, had been worthy of his wage. "Go not 



76 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

from house to house/ ' he bade his disciples, implying 
not like beggars, like those asking for alms, since honest 
work is honorable. Receiving pay is good business — and 
also is honorable. 

Sharing the common lot. — Jesus' work as a car- 
penter supplied him his understanding for leading those 
with whom he would share joy, sorrow, and the day's 
work. We all know that a complete knowledge of even 
a criminal's heredity and environment would lead many 
besides Jesus to a desire to help rather than to condemn. 
Jesus' sharing was essential to his leading. Sharing 
meant earning as an incident to living and working with 
those he helped. 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Work, for the night is coming, 

Work through the morning hours; 
Work, while the dew is sparkling, 

Work 'mid springing flowers : 
Work when the day grows brighter, 

Work in the glowing sun; 
Work, for the night is coming, 

When man's work is done. 

Work, for the night is coming, 

Work through the sunny noon; 
Fill brightest hours with labor, 

Rest comes sure and soon: 
Give every flying minute 

Something to keep in store: 
Work, for the night is corning, 

When man works no more. 

— Mrs. A. L. Coghill. 



THE LABORER IS WORTHY OF HIS HIRE 77 

STUDY TOPICS 

1. Is any boy or girl in normal health who does not wish 

to work and earn? Name six slothful animals. 
How do they live? 

2. What is the "parasite class"? On what trees is the 

mistletoe a parasite? Name three other parasites — 
plants or animals. 

3. Under what conditions does a girl living at home earn 

"her keep"? 

4. Is there any difference in honor between work of brain 

and work of muscle? 

5. Why can money not be the root of all good? 

6. Is there such a thing as "tainted money"? 

7. Why does money mean so much to the very poor? to 

the very rich? 

8. Who is our Caesar? In what form do we render any- 

thing unto Caesar? How are we tempted to cheat 
Caesar? 

9. As we come to know the meaning of "citizenship" 

shall we be more or less likely to cheat Caesar? 

10. Why, if we do not render to Caesar those things which 

are Caesar's, shall we be unlikely to render to God 
the things which are God's? 

11. Is anybody exempt from being on hire to somebody 

or something? 

12. How can a rich man's wealth own him? 

13. Compare the story of the slacker brother with the 

story of Horace Mann's boyhood. 

14. How much money have you ever earned? Do you 

especially prize money that you have earned? 

Text: 

The laborer is worthy of his hire. — Luke 10: 7. 



CHAPTER XII 
MONEY IS DEFENSE 

We often forget, while we talk about money, that we 
really want the money only because it helps on toward 
those "things not made with hands," which are the real 
values in a well-balanced life. 

All of us want leisure, not only for play in exercise of 
mind and muscle, but for refreshing and quickening our 
bodies and our souls. We want education in order to be 
intelligent for our own sake, but even more that we may 
be intelligent companions. We want to cultivate our 
skill in athletics, in music, or in art, quite as much in 
order to share our personality with our friends as to share 
our skill with them. The leisure required to cultivate 
taste is bought at a large cost to somebody. Money well 
spent is money invested — and is a sure defense against 
dullness, stupidity, and temptation. 

INVESTING AND SPENDING 

So the real question, once money is earned, is how to 
invest it — which is a different thing from merely spending 
it. Spent money may mean what a spent life or a spent 
bullet means — that its power is gone, its value lost. 
Invested money, on the other hand, keeps on earning, 
makes regular returns of something to its owner — 
dividend, interest, satisfaction, pleasure — according to 
that in which it is invested, whether in stock, or as a 
bank account, or in education, or in good for others. 

Investing. — There are certain stocks and bonds, like 

78 



MONEY IS DEFENSE 79 

the United States government bonds, that pay a little 
less in per cent of return, but whose security is so abso- 
lutely sure that the percentage of satisfaction and, in the 
long run, the actual cash return more than equals the 
more risky stocks traded in on the Stock Exchanges, or 
what is known as the "curb," and sometimes called 
"wild-cat stocks." 

So every boy and girl of you ought to study how to 
invest every time you spend your money, so that a suit 
of clothes, a loaf of bread, an evening's entertainment, 
no less than a government bond or a thrift stamp, may 
be an actual investment, and not merely money gone 
with no lasting return to show for it. Such study of 
money will teach us to invest our time and effort too. 

PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE 

Jesus' urging you to "do unto others as ye would that 
men should do to you" is based on the certainty of your 
looking out for "number one." So he bids you to look 
out for "number two" as faithfully as you do for "num- 
ber one." This looking out often takes the form at first 
of giving money; next, of giving service; last, of giving 
life itself — not giving up life at all, but, rather, giving 
that Abundant Life which is daily dying for a great 
cause. 

This looking out for "number two" begins in a desire 
to be a good neighbor and ends in being a worthy son to 
your Father in heaven. Real spiritual investing, however 
concealed by earthly wrappings, is always at the same 
time investment for God. Sometimes the more earthly 
the act the more spiritual the meaning, as in nursing, 
where you overcome your distaste for the unpleasant 
sights and confinement of the sick room. 

Carrying on. — During the Great War men and 



80 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

women, boys and girls, served their country with their 
time and money. For once many a soul and body acted 
as one. Now, after we have fallen back into our usual 
way of life, we must, as followers of Jesus, continue "to 
carry on" in proof that peace-time and war-time patriot- 
ism are "of a piece." "Carrying on" still costs time and 
money, and with the immediate coming years ever 
more time and money. 

Investing for others. — As boys and girls, your pres- 
ent relation to the church is of utmost importance, since 
soon it will be your exclusive business to forward the 
work of Christ. 

Your older brothers made names for themselves in the 
field of battle. Many died or were made incompetent to 
earn a living. You, who were too young to fight, must 
show the same kind of spirit that they did even to the 
giving of their lives. Instead of giving your life you will 
have to give money and work in order to extend those 
home missions in education and healing, which alone can 
help offset such new ills let loose by war as those evils 
involved in the extension of the tobacco and drug habit 
and the added evil of disregard for the law of the State 
and the nation. 

KEEP UP THE WAR TIME THRIFT 

Then, besides, while you have endless chances to do, 
for brother or schoolmate, thoughtful acts that are invest- 
ments, there still remains the duty of self-growth. Like 
a tree, you must absorb if you are to grow. If your mind, 
as a Christian, is to be instructed, and if your will as a 
Christian is to be developed, and if the spirit of Christ 
is to enter into your daily living, so that its presence 
shall be recognized by others, there must be some time 
saved for God, for study and practice of the life of Jesus, 



MONEY IS DEFENSE 81 

for reading the Bible. Gain in spiritual growth can come 
only through daily drinking at the spiritual fountain. 
Take time to drink! If "money is defense," as Solomon 
says, against the season of bodily need, how much more 
are the unsearchable riches of Christ defense against the 
never-ending spiritual need! 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

O Master, let me walk with thee 
In lowly paths of service free; 
Tell me thy secret, help me bear 
The strain of toil, the fret of care. 

Teach me thy patience, still with thee 
In closer, dearer company, 
In work that keeps faith sweet and strong, 
In trust that triumphs over wrong. 

— Washington Gladden. 

STUDY TOPICS 

Measure yourself by the following tests: 
i. Do you give regular time to Bible reading? 

2. How much time do you give to prayer? 

3. As you walk through the fields gathering wild flowers, 

do you realize the beauty about you as God's 
world? 

4. Do you read good poetry as an investment? 

5. Do you commit any good poetry to memory? Do you 

know the eighth psalm? If not, try going out doors 
to learn it. 

6. Read Bryant's "To a Waterfowl" and be able to say 

it the next time you see a wedge of geese flying 
over; learn at least the first and last stanzas. Name 
six waterfowl. Where do they build? Where do 
they winter? 



82 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

7. Do you think Jesus was a lover and observer of 

nature? Give the reason for your answer. 

8. What name does the bobolink take when he reaches 

the marshes of New Jersey? The rice fields of the 
Carolinas? 

9. What do you know about missions and missionaries? 

Of Doctor Grenf ell's work in Labrador? 
10. Do you show your faith in God and your love of 
Jesus Christ in such a way that your friends see a 
hint of your oneness with his Spirit? 

Text: 

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, 
is this grace given, that I should preach among the 
Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. 

— Ephesians3:8, 



CHAPTER XIII 
BEGINNING BUSINESS 

"Are you going into business?" we say, as if we 
meant, as we usually do, that "business" is someway 
limited to buying and selling: the store, the office, the 
shop or the "trade." But really business is bigger than 
that. Each and all of us must have a business. All of 
life is a business to be lived in a businesslike way. And 
we must early learn that the running of the home, the 
care of the garden, the work of voting at elections, the 
paying of the milkman, attendance at church, and the 
doing of good, all is part of the business of life, and 
each part of this must be prepared and performed in a 
businesslike way. 

A man sometimes preaches by his smile behind his 
counter as much as a minister does with his words be- 
hind his pulpit. It is the whole of life that counts; so 
the whole of life is our business, and as the whole of life 
must count for good, then the whole of life is our 
"Father's business." This was true of Jesus' life. 

THE BOY JESUS 

Saint Luke alone of the four Gospel writers lifts the 
veil of silence that covers the boyhood of Jesus. Eleven 
verses in Saint Luke showing him before the doctors in 
the Temple, are all that the Gospels contain of his early 
life after Joseph and Mary returned from Egypt to their 
home in Nazareth. While the imagination of poet, 
painter, and story-teller has tried to "make up" what no 

8 3 



84 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

one knows for a fact, here in Luke we have an actual 
account of Jesus as a boy. We see that during the twelve 
years at Nazareth, whether with Joseph in the carpenter 
shop or roaming the hillsides around the busy little city, 
Jesus had gradually learned to think of God — the very Je- 
hovah of the Jewish religion — as a personal Father. He 
is already planning to make others see this Father as 
their Father. Even as a lad of twelve he may well have 
been dreaming of the time when all the world would 
unite in prayer to "Our Father, who art in heaven." 

Learning to live. — We can imagine how the eighth 
psalm helped Jesus to see the Creator of the world with 
all its wonders as "He that keepeth Israel, who neither 
slumbers nor sleeps." We can believe that it was 
especially through the out-of-doors that Jesus, reaching 
out and touching the hand of his Father, yearned to 
make others see his Father as their Father. 

As we read this story of Saint Luke's we are puzzled 
unless we realize that here is a boy absorbed in a great, 
new interest who is explaining to his mother that he 
must be about his Father's business. Unconsciously 
Jesus had grown beyond his parents, and Mary failed to 
see that her Son had "put away childish things" and had 
arrived at the age when he had become an individual, 
conscious of his responsibility for his own life. He 
suddenly felt himself growing to be a man "in reach if 
not in grasp," and he knew it was time for him to learn 
for himself all that the rabbis could tell him about the 
matters he had been long pondering over. This was 
his chance! 

IN THE TEMPLE 

And so Jesus stayed on in the Temple after his parents 
had started for home. He forgot their very existence 



BEGINNING BUSINESS 85 

while he listened to the famous teachers discussing 
religious and national affairs. He had long been in- 
terested in his country's relation to the Roman Empire. 
He realized that here were a place and a time to learn 
some things that Nazareth could not tell him. He was a 
country boy seeing the great city of Jerusalem for the 
first time. No wonder that his interest held him spell- 
bound. 

The absorption of interest. — The subject of his in- 
terest shows the kind of boy he was — thoughtful. His 
absorption in his interest shows the intensity of his 
nature, that singleness of mind which is characteristic 
of genius the world over. We are told that while watch- 
ing the heavens the great Herschel would forget to eat 
and had to be fed, bite by bite, by his devoted sister and 
companion astronomer. Bruce of Scotland, in hiding, 
let burn those oat cakes that he had been set to watch 
by his unsuspecting peasant hostess. Pasteur, the great 
scientist, forgot to attend his own wedding. Edison, the 
great inventor, was made deaf for life by having his ears 
"boxed" for habitual inattention. He was really absorbed 
in other things. 

So, instead of thinking of the trouble he was making 
his parents by getting left behind, Jesus expressed sur- 
prise that they had not realized what a wonderful chance 
it was for him to listen to the doctors and to ask of them 
some of the questions that Mary and Joseph had not 
been able to answer. 

FOLLOWING THE VISION 

At twelve Jesus was no mere child, but even older 
than American lads of sixteen, for he was, at twelve, 
gadol, "grown-up," and subject to all the requirements 
of the Jewish law. Moreover, he must now learn a trade. 



86 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

So it is not strange that Jesus had begun to think for him- 
self, to plan his own life, and to realize that his career is 
his own and that he must live inwardly for himself if 
he would live outwardly a life of service for others. 

Long, long thoughts. — Jesus was like many a boy 
and girl who has dreamed, even at thirteen or fourteen, 
dreams of service for others. Youth, while still free from 
the burden of things, is the time for such dreaming. 
You boys and girls are the only "scot-free' ' dreamers and 
idealists. Jesus never ceased to be a dreamer. Every 
helper of humanity must keep the vision. Jesus' vision 
was to see God recognized as Father of us all, and he 
died on a cross, still dreaming of a world saved through 
his perfect faith and love and sacrifice. That was his 
business. 

To Jesus, wealth was knowing God. His own life 
capital was his knowledge of God as he knew him through 
communion and companionship, as he saw him in the 
out-of-doors, in the Scriptures and in man's striving to 
be like him. The fortune Jesus left to his followers was 
this knowledge of God — "He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father." 

MEMORY QUOTATION 
Be strong ! We are not here to play, to dream, to drift, 
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift, 
Shun not the struggle, face it, 'tis God's gift. 
Be strong, be strong! 

Be strong! It matters not how deep intrenched the 

wrong, 
How hard the battle goes, the day how long; 
Faint not, fight on! To-morrow comes the song. 
Be strong! be strong! 
— Maltbie D. Babcock. 

Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons. Used by permission. 



BEGINNING BUSINESS 87 

STUDY TOPICS 

1. Was Jesus' seeming to forget his parents due to a 

lack of interest? 

2. Look up the stories of self -absorption of great men 

including Herschel, Alfred the Great, Pasteur, 
Edison. 

3. Under what conditions are you blameless when you 

forget? 

4. Illustrate by one instance of personal experience. 

5. Do you know of boys and girls who "lift burdens"? 

Do you? 

6. What does the poet Babcock mean by, "To-morrow 

comes the song" ? 

7. What is the meaning of "scot-free"? Of idealist? 

Of "dreaming"? 

8. Explain what the poet Browning means by "a man's 

reach should exceed his grasp." 

9. Read again in Luke the story of the visit to the 

Temple. 
10. Read the eighth psalm. 

Text: 

And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought 
me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's 
business? — Luke 2: 49. 



CHAPTER XIV 
TRUTH IS WEALTH 

The finding of truth and passing it on makes up the 
whole story of man's advance. Adam and Eve lacked 
even the covering of birds' feathers or beasts' fur against 
blistering heat or numbing cold when they were thrust 
out of the Garden of Eden. In such a state of unpre- 
paredness they had to fall back on their mother-wit to 
find food and shelter for themselves and their children. 
They began this storing up of truth, which, after thou- 
sands of years, is the total of all we have in clothing, 
tools, knowledge of soils and fertilizers, transportations, 
markets, and wisdom of every kind over the first Adam. 

On pain of death. — Truth-getting has cost strain 
and effort, sweat and blood. But measured by what it 
has done for Adam, Truth is worth all it has cost. But, 
again, if it has cost so much and is still worth the price, 
then Solomon is wise in urging the ever-buying of new 
truth and the never-selling of old truth. Now, the 
selling of one thing means the giving it up in exchange 
for some other thing. But notice that selling or trading 
truth is as different from sharing truth as hoarding 
wealth is from investing wealth, as far apart as folly and 
wisdom, or as good and bad business. 

WAYS OF INVESTING TRUTH 

Further still, Solomon does not bid you not to give truth 
away, for he knew that only by giving it away freely for 
the use of any one who can use it, can truth return, like 

88 



TRUTH IS WEALTH 89 

the bread upon the waters, to bless the giver. The giver 
in turn sees his only reward for his labor of truth- 
getting in the use to which his discovery of truth has 
been put. This sharing and giving of truth is the only 
purpose of the investigator's existence. 

Contrast him with the quack, who, jealous of sharing 
a possible truth, keeps it for his personal profit. The 
quack would rather have his name written in dollars 
than in service. And, verily, he hath his reward in 
dollars , while the "pure scientist," who seeks truth for 
its own sake, has, as his reward for casting his discovery 
upon the waters of the world, his name built into the 
very language of world-speech: Platonic, Copernican, 
Torricellian, Galvanic, Voltaic, Darwinian. 

The reward of the scientist. — How shall Edison's 
name be preserved in our everyday speech when he shall 
have crowned his inventions by a perfect storage battery? 
How shall the world repay Madame Curie's discovery of 
radium? Even now America has thanked Madame Curie 
by giving to her a hundred-thousand dollar particle of 
the precious stuff on the occasion of her visit to our 
country in 192 1. 

Science applied. — So, in the Grand March of Pro- 
gress scientific Truth leads off — a cloud by day, a pillar 
of fire by night — while Truth Applied follows close be- 
hind, eager to be put to practical use. Galvani discovered 
the principles of the electric current, Volta devised ap- 
paratus for chemically developing electric currents, but 
it was our own Benjamin Franklin who invented the 
lightning rod; Edison who gave us illumination, and 
Bell, distance speaking. While Truth moves free, light 
as air, careless of consequences, it takes the practical 
inventor to seize her and put her to work. The inventor, 
in turn, has to express truth in concrete form, as in the 



90 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

telephone or phonograph. It takes the inventor to bring 
truth literally to earth and harness it for use, by the 
mere touching of a button. 

INVENTION 

We have been thinking of world-wealth in terms of 
electricity alone, from the convenient pocket-flash light 
to the electrically operated Zeppelin in regular flight 
from Paris to London. But these electrical expressions 
of world-wealth are all in the single department of 
physics, in relation to motion; while truth in the large 
has as many forms as there are facts in the universe. 

Infinite-sided truth. — Truth is infinite-sided, cover- 
ing all that we can see or handle in earth, sea, and sky, 
including the facts about the elements into which 
chemistry resolves matter. It includes, for example, all 
facts about those worlds beyond our handling, in as- 
tronomy, whether foretelling the exact time of a new 
comet's appearing or the weight of a star millions of 
miles distant. 

Truth also includes all those deeply hidden mysteries 
of life and growth that have to do with health or the 
protection against disease in plant or animal life, whether 
in the friendly cheese or butter germs, or in the defense 
against the destructive typhus germ. Truth is concerned 
with the working of the mind of man, which, rising 
above the needs of food, and reaching beyond all con- 
siderations for comforts and luxuries, puts all world- 
wealth aside in his passion to "think God's thoughts 
after him" in knowing who and what God is. Slowly, by 
discovery, invention, thought, trial, and error, men are 
discovering more and more of the infinity of truth which 
God has made ready. 

With the papers full of discoveries in connection with 



TRUTH IS WEALTH 9 i 

space and ether, and the wonderful inventions of this 
new century which take us into new spheres of God's 
world — it would be a pity, if, in becoming more intimate 
with his great world of atoms and microbes and elec- 
tricity, we understand only the physical creations of 
God. Certainly, we must search for the wealth which is 
his truth expressed through faith, love, kindness, fine 
deeds, noble thoughts, worthy ambitions. Most of all 
we need knowledge of the unsearchable riches of God in 
Christ. 

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath 
entered into the heart of man, the things which God 
hath prepared for them that love him. 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

The Chambered Nautilus 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past, 

Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! 

— Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

STUDY TOPICS 

i. Name five ways in which we are gaining in the idea 
of national sharing. 

2. In what way was our "War of Humanity," fought in 

behalf of Cuba, meant to exemplify international 
sharing? 

3. How does the slogan, "Make the world safe for 

democracy" express the ideal for world sharing? 



92 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

4. In your own life, how have you begun to find that love 

works, that is, that the more you give out the more 
comes back to you? the more you feel for others 
the richer your friendship will be? 

5. What is an ampere? 

6. Who were Plato, Copernicus? Torricelli? Galvani? 

/olta? Darwin? 

7. Who is Marconi? Edison? Madame Curie? 

8. What is the Volta Review? 

9. Who expressed these truths? — * 'Blessed are the peace- 

makers"; "The wages of sin is death" ; "To him that 

hath shall be given." 
10. What are some of the unsearchable riches of God? 

Note. — Read Sarah K. Bolton's Famous Men of Science. 
Read Rupert S. Holland's Historic Boyhoods or Historic 
Girlhoods. 

Text: 

Buy the truth, and sell it not.— Proverbs 23: 23. 



CHAPTER XV 

WHAT IS YOUR WORK? 

Just as Jesus at twelve was thinking about his day's 
work, it is well for boys and girls of your age to begin 
thinking about yours, and to weigh and consider your 
fitness for a particular work, with particular thought 
about earning your living in the way best suited to 
winning your own satisfaction while giving the greatest 
satisfaction to those close to you. 

CAREFUL CHOOSING 

Only careful choice can insure you against being a 
misfit. Only certain knowledge of your fitness can save 
a mistake in choice. Do not choose your work because 
it is easy. Do not choose your work because it is hard. 
Do choose it because it is worth somebody's doing, and 
because you are that somebody — provided it will chal- 
lenge the best in you to do it as it ought to be done. 
Joy in work is the result of wise choice. Drifting into an 
occupation is only less bad than forcing yourself into one 
that is against your nature. 

With so many more things to do than ever before, 
through inventions that have followed in the wake of 
scientific advance, there is little need for a boy or girl 
to make a mistake or to find "carrying on" in a worthy 
vocation anything but a high adventure. 

Paying the price. — But perhaps you are not properly 
prepared for the thing you want to do. Shall you spend 

93 



94 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

a long life doing a second-best choice for the sake of 
avoiding a strong, hard pull for a little while? Are you 
willing to pay the price for success? 

Maybe your desire to be an architect or an engineer, 
of any one of a dozen sorts, is conditioned upon your 
high-school mathematics. Are you bound to conquer or 
willing to be conquered? Can you force yourself to do 
the average work, and, by acquiring a new power, be- 
come a new person, ready for the new place when it 
"comes your way," ready for the chance, when the time 
comes to change, to go up higher? Did ever a great man 
stand still in the position he began with? 

But all the time you are planning your future work 
you must realize that your work now is making business 
of to-day's work, the work of preparing for still greater 
and more interesting things on ahead. Like enough it is 
in school with lessons to get and tasks to perform. Very 
well: make a business of it. Pay the price in grit and 
work. Succeed, and so make ready for fuither 
success. 

Your natural gifts. — You are under trial to prove 
this day your fitness to be trusted with ten talents or 
with five, or with one talent. In speculating on what 
kind of a man or woman you want to be, apply Jesus' 
parable of the talents to decide whether you are hiding 
in a napkin talents that are your great special gift or 
whether you are putting to increase some single talent 
by developing some least ability you may have. Your 
talents, one or many, must grow if you would prove that, 
as money-maker or truth-discoverer or talent-user of 
any kind, you are worth more than the toy savings-bank 
in which the "unfaithful servant" laid his napkin- 
wrapped talent. 



WHAT IS YOUR WORK? 95 



Before you are quite ready to plan your own lifework 
it is well to know what led some of our great men to 
choose theirs. A book called The Romance of Labor, by 
Mrs. Twombly and Mr. Dana, contains descriptions of 
occupations and the joy that men and women have 
found in the very work of earning a living. The occupa- 
tions are hemp-growing, salmon-canning, light-house 
building; the making of pottery and glass; the story of 
irrigation, sheep-shearing, cattle-driving and branding; 
mining, logging, and moth-collecting. 

Making work into adventure. — But more interest- 
ing than the description of the different kinds of work 
are the stories of the writers who picture the scenes. In 
speaking of F. Hopkinson Smith we learn that to "Hop" 
Smith life was not labor, but adventure. He went forth 
to meet life with a gallantry that welcomed toil and 
danger because they were the price of achievement. [Mr. 
Smith not only wrote famous stories, but painted charm- 
ing pictures and laid the only foundation for Minot's 
Light in Boston harbor that has been able to stand the 
force of the sea. 

This distinguished engineer also built the great 'sea- 
wall to protect Governor's Island as well as the founda- 
tion and pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in New York 
harbor. What a boy he must have been! Eager and 
imaginative, studying pictures while doing his engineer's 
work, watching those about him in order to picture 
them in his stories — but always preparing for the next 
larger engineering feat just ahead! 

Close to nature. — In this same book, James Lane 
Allen gives such an account of himself as a boy sowing 
hemp, cultivating it and harvesting the crop, that he 



96 . LIVING AT OUR BEST 

makes his reader see a field of growing hemp. Mr. Allen 
might have ended his days as a Kentucky farmer, if, as 
a boy, he had not seen the beautiful side of the farmer's 
life, and if he had not used his God-bestowed power of 
imagination to see in nature much besides hemp-growing 
that is beautiful. And that is why, when he began to 
write, James Lane Allen could picture the miracle that 
takes place every year, as, day after day, the seeds of 
the hemp unfold themselves, until "a hundred days from 
the sowing, they come forth with their mass of leaves 
and blooming and earliest fruits, elastic, swaying, six, 
ten, twelve feet from the ground, and ripe for the 
harvest." 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Epilogue to Asolando 

One who never turned his back, but marched breast for- 
ward, 
Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong 

would triumph, 
Held, we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
Sleep to wake. 

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time 

Greet the unseen with a cheer! 
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 
"Strive and thrive!" cry, "Speed, fight on, fare ever 
There as here!" 

— Robert Browning. 

STUDY TOPICS 

i. Explain your idea of getting satisfaction out of work. 
2. What evidence is there that Jesus was thinking about 
his life's work at twelve? 



WHAT IS YOUR WORK? 97 

3. Have you thought what you want to make your life- 

work? Perhaps it is too early yet for you to decide 
just the vocation, but can you be preparing, at least, 
for something worth while? 

4. What is meant by "square pegs in round holes"? Do 

you know any person of this sort? How can this 
mistake be prevented? 

5. Which matters more, what you do or the way you do 

it? How long yet ought you to go to school in order 
to be ready for the best work you can do? Does it 
pay to cut education time short? 

6. If you lack some item necessary for your chosen work, 

how shall you go about to get it? 

7. Tell the story of the talents. 

Text: 

In all labor there is profit. — Proverbs 14: 23. 



CHAPTER XVI 
WHEN WORK IS NOT DRUDGERY 

The wealth of the patriarchs was in flocks and herds. 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were nomads, dwelling in 
tents and moving about from place to place for better 
grazing grounds. The rich man of that day had to know 
one thing: how to increase his sheep and cattle. His 
skill was in working close to nature and handling it in 
a large and daring way. 

By the time of Jesus the Israelites had settled down 
to be dwellers in "fenced cities. " They made things 
with their hands and sold them. Their skill was handi- 
craft, while their wealth was the result, as ours is now, 
largely of shrewdness. As merchants their virtues were 
negative; their excellence consisted in abstinence; their 
sins were the petty sins of the trader, and they grew rich 
in getting the better in a "deal." 

A trade for every boy. — But while Israel had be- 
come a nation of citizens and merchants, with many 
occupations, it still remained a part of the national wis- 
dom to require a boy to begin at twelve to learn a trade. 
At the same time he assumed the obligations of an adult 
Jew and received instructions in the Law as "a son of 
Torah," a son of the Pentateuch, the Law of Moses. 

PRIEST OR CARPENTER 

Jesus was a first-born son, free from blemish. This 
exempted him from learning a trade, since, in these con- 
ditions, he was required to be presented to the Temple 
for priestly service. But, because the tribe of Levi had 

98 



WHEN WORK IS NOT DRUDGERY 99 

been set aside from this work, this child of the tribe of 
Judah might be reclaimed to his parents by the payment 
of five shekels (about three dollars) as redemption 
money. So, after Jesus was thirty days old, he was 
presented and redeemed in a simple ceremony: given 
into the hands of the priest, who, after two short benedic- 
tions, received the redemption money and handed the 
child back to his parents. 

Jesus chooses a trade. — Hence it was necessary, 
when Jesus reached twelve years, to do as other Jewish 
boys did — learn a trade. The custom of requiring every 
boy to learn a trade was one of the sure foundations of 
Israel's national security. In the case of Jesus this fol- 
lowing the trade of Joseph would, as we have said, seem 
an essential preparation to his leadership. And is it not 
pleasant to think of Jesus doing work so well suited to 
his fine, strong, gentle nature — work in sweet, clean- 
smelling wood that calls for accurate measure, exacting 
both of eye and hand? Like gardening, carpentry makes 
for fineness and serenity. Look at the trusted, respected 
carpenter who comes to your own home to do a needed 
piece of repair work: is there any other workman you 
follow about and watch with more interest than you do 
him, while he makes some new steps, fits a lock, or 
builds a grape arbor? 

Watch the carpenter plan and measure before he takes 
up his saw. No waste of time is this care that saves 
precious material and doing-over, any more than with 
the dressmaker, whose manner of work and whose love 
of work is much like the carpenter's. Both carpenter 
and dressmaker, in large measure, do creative work. 
Their pattern is in their head. They give dignity to their 
craft and their craft gives dignity to them. Who ever 
heard of a carpenter's being "scourged" to his work? or 



ioo LIVING AT OUR BEST 

a milliner? or an artist? Work to them is joy, doing the 
thing they choose to do — never drudgery — because they 
love their work. 

Lessons learned at the carpenter's bench. — Jesus' 
trade brought him into everyday relationships with all 
sorts of ordinary people in the ordinary ways. By fol- 
lowing John the Baptist's way of taking to the wilderness, 
Jesus would not have been fitted for his own work. The 
hours at the carpenter's bench made him thoughtful, 
gentle, sympathetic. Instead of "crying in the wilder- 
ness," he said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor," for 
he knew the meaning of labor. While John almost 
scourged the people with his tongue Jesus was a shepherd 
calling his flock into the fold. 

He knew that learning a trade serves many purposes 
besides earning a living or insuring a supply of the 
workmen of different sorts. Here are some of the things 
that he may have learned and that we to-day may learn 
in honest work: 

i. That thorough training in one sort of work fits for 
many other sorts of work. 

2. That mind-strain is a part of handwork as well as 
of head work, and that eight hours of centered effort is a 
good day's work. 

3. That even a sight of "how the other half lives" 
awakens a desire in the favored and sheltered to see that 
the man who produces the cream gets some part of it 
for himself and his family. 

4. That one honest worker respects another honest 
worker, even though far apart as cook and artist. 

5. That work, even of the humblest sort, can be raised 
above drudgery, partly through the worker's way of 
doing it, and partly through the employer's way of 
receiving it. 



WHEN WORK IS NOT DRUDGERY 101 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

The Master's Men 
My Master was a worker, 

With daily work to do, 
And he who would be like him 

Must be a worker too ; 
Then welcome honest labor, 

And honest labor's fare, 
For where there is a worker 

The Master's man is there. 

My Master was a comrade, 

A trusty friend and true, 
And he who would be like him 

Must be a comrade too; 
In happy hours of singing, 

In silent hours of care, 
Where goes a loyal comrade, 

The Master's man is there. 

My Master was a helper, 

The woes of life he knew, 
And he who would be like him 

Must be a helper too; 
The burden will grow lighter, 

If each will take a share, 
And where there is a helper 

The Master's man is there. 

Then, brothers, brave and manly 

Together let us be, 
For he who is our Master 

The Man of men was he; 
The men who would be like him 

Are wanted everywhere, 
And where they love each other 

The Master's men are there. 

— William G. Tarrant. 



102 LIVING AT OUR BEST 



STUDY TOPICS 



i. Enumerate the five points that set forth the social 
value of learning a trade. 

2. Will these points apply to your own daily school work 

or chores? 

3. Enumerate the kinds of work done in your home by 

your father, mother, children, and helpers in house- 
hold affairs. Is it a fair division for all? 

4. Suppose these workers failed to do their work; 

what would be the results on family life? Imagine 
your home with no one to do mother's work; 
with no father to support the family; with no 
one to look after the kitchen or to prepare the 
meals. 

5. Give an illustration of drudgery in your own experience, 

and explain why it was drudgery. 

6. How can such drudgery be changed into joy work by 

changing the point of view? Apply this to the care 
of the furnace, firewood, the care of the cow or the 
chickens, based on profit-sharing. Learn and repeat 
George Eliot's lines in Stradivarius : 

"Who draws a line and satisfies his soul, 
Making it crooked where it should be straight? 

But God be praised, 
Antonio Stradivari has an eye 
That winces at false work and loves the true, 
With hand and arm that play upon the tool 
As willingly as any singing bird 
Sets him to sing his morning roundelay, 
Because he likes to sing and likes the song." 

7. How can the world's workers rise above drudgery in 

the factory and shop? 



WHEN WORK IS NOT DRUDGERY 103 

8. Tell of the social welfare work done in the factories and 

shops which inspire the workers into new thought 
of labor, and hence help to do away with the thought 
of work as drudgery. 

9. What pictures do you know which show Jesus in con- 

nection with the carpenter's trade? 

Text: 

My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. 

—John 5: 17. 



CHAPTER XVII 

"MY SKILL IS MY FORTUNE, SIR" 

Money is not so much the banker's capital as is the 
skill with which he handles money. Money locked up 
in a vault becomes capital only when it is taken out and 
invested. 

WEALTH, THE SERVANT OF SKILL 

The house-painter's brush is not so much his capital 
as is the skill with which he handles his brush. A paint- 
brush in a store showcase becomes capital only when it 
is taken out and invested in the hand of a painter. The 
banker's skill is chiefly in his brain, which makes deci- 
sions and gives orders for others to follow, while the 
painter's skill is in his hands as much as in his brain, 
though hands without a brain are of small worth. 

Hard cash and skilled labor. — Material wealth is 
of two sorts: first, the wealth that is money, whether 
hoarded in an old stocking, invested in business, or put 
into a savings bank for interest; second, the wealth that 
nature stores up in mine, in forest, and in soils — the 
wealth that only the hand of man, directed by his head, 
can extract. 

It is because skilled workers seem to use only their 
hands that they are too often thought of and spoken of 
as "hands" instead of as human capital. Mere tools or 
machines could not get hold of the wealth of nature. 
The real boss of the machine is the skill the worker puts 
into the use of it. 

104 



"MY SKILL IS MY FORTUNE, SIR" 105 

vain thing for safety"; and just so is any kind of natural 
wealth, until the workman's skill turns it into his use — 
until he can "drive it." The earth without workers is 
no more rich than the flower that wastes "its sweetness 
on the desert air" is fragrant without smellers — human 
or animal — to enjoy or use it. The worker is the true 
producer. 

THE SOURCE OF MAN'S SKILL 

Your hand. — Did you ever think that the part of a 
man's body that makes him different from any lower 
animal is the way his thumb can work against any one 
of his four fingers? That kind of a thumb, which scientists 
call "apposable," is the Creator's crowning physical gift to 
man. Your thumb is to your hand what your brain is to 
your five senses. It makes you skillful beyond the highest 
ape in the use of your hand, just as the "gray matter" 
in your brain makes you skillful beyond the highest 
ape in the use of your head. 

Your brain. — God "breathed into his nostrils the 
breath of life; and man became a living soul." It is 
your wonderful brain directing your wonderful hand 
that gives you skill to meet life with other weapons than 
the animal's tooth and claw. God's breath is fit for you 
to breathe just because God planned that your head and 
hand should work together and that your mind should 
develop at the same time that it is teaching you control 
of your muscles and nerves. This hand-head work is the 
only natural, God-given kind of exercise that will make 
you grow at once in all three ways — in your body, your 
mind, and your heart. 

WHERE YOUR REAL CAPITAL IS 

So, when you are thinking about the big things you 
would like to do you should remember that the only 



io6 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

kind of wealth it is necessary for you to start with is 
what is locked up in your ability to become skillful. 
Many of the world's greatest have had only this as a 
beginning of success. Money does little but harm to the 
boy or girl who has not learned these truths: (i) that 
health is wealth; (2) that wealth is opportunity; (3) that 
time is really eternity; (4) that in living and working 
with others we must give a hand and take a hand. 

But it requires about two thirds of a long life to learn 
this wisdom, and it comes then most surely along with 
acquiring skill in some one of the many kinds of work. 
Meanwhile skill is akin to those heart qualities that do 
not "make themselves wings with which to fly away as 
an eagle toward heaven." 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

The Tapestry Weavers 
The years of man are looms of God, 

Let down from the place of the sun, 
Wherein we are weaving always, 

Till the mystic web is done, 
Weaving blindly, but weaving surely, 

Each for himself his fate. 
We may not see how the right side looks, 

We can only weave and wait. 

— Anson G. Chester. 

STUDY TOPICS 

1. State in your own words just what the heading of to- 

day's lesson means. 

2. Has it helped you realize that your mind must be 

trained to do the right things in the right way — 
just as your bodies are trained to be strong, upright, 
and beautiful? 



"MY SKILL IS MY FORTUNE, SIR" 107 

3. What are the characteristics of an able man that you 

would like to imitate? 

4. Can you think of any particular man in your own 

country, America, whom you would like to follow 
for an example? 

5. Name four or five persons, men or women, of whom 

you have read, either in the Bible or from some 
"life," who are good or great persons. 

6. What unusual characteristics did Jesus show as a boy? 

7. Relate the account of his conversation with the 

doctors in the Temple. 

8. Can you concentrate on your work or play and forget 

the scenes about you: the view out of the window 
or the call of the voice of friends ? 

9. Can you take a quick or passing glimpse of things in 

a store window, and recall after passing the window 
half the objects that are there? Test yourself. 

10. Can you refurnish from memory the living room in 

your home, describing the pictures on the walls and 
the ornaments? Could you return the rugs to then- 
places all over the house? 

11. Can you tell the names of familiar people from pic- 

tures, as Lincoln, Washington, Hamilton? What is 
the standard advertisement for Baker's Chocolate? 
Can you draw a bird or pig from memory? Practice 
it. 

12. Can you "place" quotations quickly, as: "Give me 

liberty or give me death!"? "We have met the 
enemy and they are ours!"? 

13. Can you give the titles to songs, "Be it ever so 

humble," "Oh, say can you see?" Can you name 
the authors? 

14. Can you name trees or shrubs as you pass them in 

an automobile or train? How many of the common 
flowers are strangers to you? 

15. Can you tell the kinds of dogs you see, Saint Bernard, 

Spitz, Newfoundland, pug, bull, mastiff, etc.? 



108 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

16. Can you remember the full names of your grand- 

fathers on both sides? What do you know of your 
ancestry? 

17. Can you commit poetry easily? Test yourself on some- 

thing new. Can you quote prose correctly? 

18. How much Bible material do you know from memory? 

19. What do you think is the true lesson or thought of 

"The Tapestry Weavers"? 

Text: 

As for these four children, God gave them knowl- 
edge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and 
Daniel had understanding in all visions and 
dreams. — Daniel 1:17. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

WHAT IS THRIFT? 

During the Great War our government started a 
thrift movement among the school children to set them 
thinking about a subject quite new to most boys and 
girls. Of course some boys and girls do know a great 
deal about earning money, but very few are likely to 
know much about real thrift, which is neither earning, 
spending, nor hoarding, but wise using. 

THRIFTLESS AMERICA 

We Americans are regarded as thriftless. French 
people say that the ordinary French family can live on 
what the ordinary American family wastes. Whether 
this is true or not, we do realize that in most of our homes 
we are not so painstaking with all the details of our 
day's expenditure as the people of other nations. 

Other waste. — We not only waste food but we waste 
our opportunities. We waste time. We put our leisure 
to poor use. It might be of interest to jot down on a 
paper now, just how much has been wasted during the 
past week by all the members of the class. We shall be 
surprised at the wicked lack of thrift on the part of every 
one of us. It means much money, much time, and much 
opportunity that might all have been used for something 
very much worth while. 

Incentive to thrift. — Before you have an incentive to 
save, you must have an incentive to look ahead for the 
sake of yourself or others. Not only does present waste 

109 



no LIVING AT OUR BEST 

make future want, but present desire makes necessity 
the mother of invention, for we immediately go to work 
to invent something that will give us the desired end. 
With looking ahead will come the proper measuring of 
the value of saving for the desired end. This will suggest 
the folly of working only to spend, reckless of the time 
of illness, or of the chance of possible investments, or 
safeguard from penury in old age. Whether as lawyer 
or bank director, whether as a sign-painter or artist, day 
laborer or public official, it matters not what fabulous 
or meager sum of money you may have; you will always 
be "hard up" if you do not know how to use money. 

THE HABIT OF SAVING 

For the sake of wise spending your saving becomes a 
habit when you follow some method: as saving a certain 
per cent of what you receive or make. If you earn five 
dollars a week, save, say, one dollar or fifty cents. It 
may not be large saving but it is the beginning of thrift. 
If you have ten dollars a week, either earned or given to 
you, a certain proportion, large or small, should be put 
aside for the sunny day and the rainy day. Then, at 
times, going without something that you particularly 
like in order to bestow upon some friend a gift that costs 
the whole price of your sacrifice is in a certain way a 
thrift measure, because it is saving for a desired end 
for someone else. The boy or girl whose saving account 
has been kept up with this idea of saving for others, will 
add lime to his backbone and an upward curve to his 
lips. The boy who spent a thousand dollars a year for 
clothes and sports and gave ten dollars a year to the 
church needed "fresh lime," didn't he? 

Ways to save. — One way to save is by putting out 
your money at interest, either in savings banks or in 



WHAT IS THRIFT? in 

buying thrift stamps. You increase your savings by 
letting your money work. Then another way is to in- 
vest your money in production, let us say in a garden, 
in bee-keeping or poultry-raising. In this case, you and 
your money work together. Letting your money work 
with you is doubling profits, besides bringing with it the 
income of experience and health. In fact, this is really 
triple earning. 

THRIFT FOUNDED UPON INTELLIGENCE 

To be truly thrifty you must study what you need 
and what you can do without. You must also know the 
quality of those things which you really must buy, 
whether tools or patterns. There is an estimate that 
eighty per cent of the money spent in our great city 
shops is spent by women. If correct, it puts women 
under an eighty-per-cent obligation to make themselves 
judges of "quality" goods. Whether women buy or men 
buy, they should know fabrics — cotton, linen, woollen, 
and silk — and should likewise know their wearing 
qualities under different uses. Thrift demands that you 
know about rubber and leather just as intelligently as 
you know about tools, for you must buy both with a 
view to lasting qualities. 

Right care. — Nothing shows more unmistakably both 
for thrift and for refinement of taste than that right care 
of things that follows intelligent selection. The boy who 
knows linen from cotton and pays out of his own earning 
for a Belfast linen handkerchief would naturally hesitate 
to put it to a use fit only for an old rag. Sir James Barrie 
quotes his mother as saying, "They as has siller of their 
own are careful of other folks' siller, " and truly your 
care of table silver is a possible light on your social 



ii2 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

background as well as a sure test of your conscience as 
measured by the way you value things. 

THE LAST WORD IN THRIFT 

The only way to thrift is getting the whole use out of 
a thing. When one realizes that a single grain of rice 
goes through the same processes of growing, harvesting, 
and marketing that the whole bag of rice went through, 
and that that grain of rice with all the others must be 
transported and brought to the very kitchen where it 
is to be cooked, with expensive seasonings and more 
expensive serving, one should ask himself if he is thrifty 
when he takes a particle of the rice more than he needs. 

Waste not. — Then add to this thought of waste the 
more compelling thought that one third of the human 
family goes to bed hungry night after night because there 
is not enough food produced to go around. When we 
consider this terrible condition of actual hunger going 
on in the world, there cannot but be awakened within 
us a desire to share with others and at the same time to 
curb our appetites to such an extent that we do not 
order more food or take more food than we need. 

Christ's thrift 
We have said that thrift is not only the wise use of 
money but the exacting use of time and opportunity. 
For thirty years Jesus went about his humble life storing 
up the precious observations concerning his fellow men, 
the material world, and the priceless words of Israel's 
great lawgiver and her psalmist. These sayings, saved in 
thrifty youth and early manhood, were the pure gold 
ready at hand to invest in his ministry, whether as 
illustrations in his talks with the fishermen by the sea, 
the multitude on the mountain side, or the woman at 
the well. 



WHAT IS THRIFT? 113 

Everywhere thrift. — We have no word of Christ's 
ever returning to his carpenter's bench after he entered 
upon his work with the people. Henceforth his one thrift 
of time and opportunity was the saving of souls through 
the forming and reforming of character rather than 
through hoarding his own soul. And as his disciples 
caught his inspiration, they too, who had been earning 
their living by their trades up to the time that they were 
called to follow Christ's leadership — they too went forth 
to preach the kingdom of righteousness, trusting then- 
Master's command to take with them no scrip, but, 
rather, to rely upon a kind of heavenly thrift which 
would at all times earn for them their "keep" as they 
went from town to town preaching the gospel. 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Duty 

Open thy door straightway, and get thee hence; 
Go forth into the tumult and the shout; 
Work, love, with workers, lovers, all about; 
Of noise alone is born the inward sense 

Of silence; and from action springs alone 
The inward knowledge of true love and faith. 
— George MacDonald. 

STUDY TOPICS 

1. How does thrift differ from hoarding? 

2. Name five other ways to thrift other than buying 

thrift stamps or keeping a savings bank account. 

3. Why is thrift, as you practice it, worth more than the 

money you save? 

4. Who pays the cost of delivery of milk? of groceries? of 

coal? of dry goods? of water when faucets are left 
open? of electric lights or gas left burning? of over- 
heating? of food left on your plate? of tariff? 



ii 4 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

5. Name some things you would rather spend your money 

for than to pay bills for wasted water, gas, food, or 
heat. 

6. Explain what you mean by "waste," as applied to 

clothing. Is it other than misuse? 

7. Though in spite of proper care you wear out your 

shoes, why is that wear not waste? 

8. Were you made for clothes or were clothes made for 

you? How, then, can you express thrift in the use 
you put them to? 

Text: 

Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all thou hast, and 
distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure 
in heaven: and come, follow me. — Luke 18: 22. 



CHAPTER XIX 
WHEN BECOME A SPECIALIST? 

Of course until you boys and girls have finished the 
high school, it is not expected that you will know exactly 
what you are going to do out in the big world of adven- 
ture. Yet a great many young people have to go to work: 
before they finish the high school. It is unfortunate 
that they are not better prepared, because when they 
enter industry as "green hands" they have little chance 
to choose their work. For that reason boys and girls 
oftentimes enter what are called "blind alleys," where 
they spend many years before they realize that they 
have made a mistake and in vain regret that they were 
not helped to choose the vocation for which they really 
had fitness. 

EARLY EFFICIENCY 

For that reason, long before you finish the high school, 
why should you not become efficient in some particular 
way which may be of real use to you in the near future? 
There is no reason why every boy or girl should not be 
particularly efficient in certain lines of mental or social 
activity. 

Letter-writing. — For instance, can you write a 
letter? Can you write so good a letter that it will com- 
mend you more to the employer than the letter from 
someone else that is meant to recommend you and which 
you will carry with you to introduce you to a possible 
employer? Writing letters can become an art, and the 

ii5 



n6 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

more you practice the better letter you ought to 
write. 

Reading aloud. — What is your present capital in 
ability to read aloud? Does your reading give pleasure 
to others, and can you go to a hospital or orphanage or 
home for crippled children and entertain them by read- 
ing stories or books of adventure? Could you earn money 
for reading aloud to one able to pay for the service? 

General intelligence. — Can you pass the Edison 
tests, not perhaps at one hundred per cent, but as a 
thinking person who remembers something of what he 
learns and knows something of what he has never been 
taught? Is there anything you know so well that you 
can teach it to other boys and girls? These are the 
marks of a specialist at your age; and they prove that 
later on you will be able to do other things with accuracy 
and efficiency. 

WHEN START SPECIALIZING? 

There are two dangers that confront you boys and 
girls: one danger is that you will be a specialist too early, 
and the other that you will never be a specialist. 

General education first. — It will not do for you to 
specialize until you have a good general education. 
Education must be all-around, until you have the in- 
telligence that makes you feel at home with thinking 
people. Then gradually you can place emphasis upon 
some particular knowledge or craft, so that you can in 
time enter upon work as an expert. No one can be so 
well equipped in all-around education as to be able to 
go out and demand a particular kind of work. We would 
have to compete with one trained in that particular line. 
While the specialist is a one- job man, the handy man is 
an any-job man. The handy man is poorly paid, because 



WHEN BECOME A SPECIALIST? 117 

he is "just average." In "hard times" both the one-job 
and the any-job man suffers. Two strings to your bow, 
a second specialty in addition to a first specialty, do 
much to make and keep life safe and sane. 

HOW START SPECIALIZING 

But what shall be your own first conscious step as a 
specialist toward winning a place in the big world? 
Begin by doing well each thing that you do, both in 
work and play. Make serious work of collecting postage 
stamps or autographs or raising rabbits. Whether you 
are cooking, or preserving, or knitting sweaters, do it 
with a will and do it well. 

Wide choice. — There are so many things to do that 
will bring richness to the mind and health to the body! 
Turning the domestic science course of the school into 
a practical summer housekeeping course brings not only 
its own reward but may pay so well that there will be 
money for music lessons or money to be laid away for 
something expressive of the heart's desire. The first 
element of character is negative, we are told by a writer 
of psychology. It is a matter of self-control, he says. 
Emotions and thoughts must be controlled if the body 
is to be healthy and life successful. Choosing a vocation 
in which one's great desire and interest combines with 
larger health establishes this self-control and directs 
one's daily life into right living. 

Trial and error. — At your age very few boys and 
girls choose their final occupations or vocations. You go 
through a succession of work-and-play specialties. But 
there are some boys and girls of thirteen or fourteen 
who really know what they want to do all the days of 
their lives. All training that such boys and girls get in 
the school years is therefore just so much preparation 



n8 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

for adult life later on. The saddest thing we know in 
the school world to-day is the fact that so many boys 
and girls drop out and enter "blind-alley" occupations. 
Sometimes they are obliged to leave school in order to 
support other members of the family, and oftentimes 
they drop out because they are not interested in the 
school studies. 

Trial and test. — The long years spent in the public 
school by boys and girls should season and harden them 
into splendid thinking machines. Moreover, while they 
are still in school they should examine into different 
occupations which will be offered to them after they 
leave school, learning something about the work that is 
done in each occupation. This vocation study gives the 
pupil a knowledge of the kind of workers employed in 
a given industry, and its adaptation to one's own per- 
sonal tastes and characteristics. The study of vocational 
opportunities also gives some idea of the advantages 
which one occupation may have over another and points 
out the best chances of promotion. 

SERIES OF SPECIALTIES 

But as we say, at your age most boys and girls are 
not choosing their vocation. They are simply working 
and playing at specialties. Do not fear because you 
have a succession of specialties that you will be set 
down as unstable. For all-around growth you need as 
many kinds of work and play as you need studies in 
school. The one essential condition is that each interest 
in itself which you follow shall be wholesome and helpful 
toward the development and the permanent end of your 
life. 

Parents and children. — By putting work into your 
play you will have some man in you, and as a man by 



WHEN BECOME A SPECIALIST? 119 

putting some play into your work you will always keep 
some boy in you. This is very wise, for you need in boy- 
hood some of your father's seriousness and in girlhood 
some of your mother's wisdom, and surely you know 
that mothers and fathers must keep young in order that 
they may play with you and in order that both genera- 
tions may meet on common grounds. Seriousness will 
save you from being mere children. Play will save your 
parents from being mere workers in the world. 

Make nature a specialty. — Meanwhile in becoming 
an expert tennis player or golfer or woodcraf ter, remem- 
ber that you cannot afford to forget nature. Boy or Girl 
Scout though you be, you will know less than the coun- 
try lad about nature unless you make a special study of 
birds and flowers and trees. Observation of the ways 
of nature which supplies the kind of knowledge that is 
at the bottom of all good writing, prose and poetry alike, 
challenges you not only through the summer but in all 
seasons. If you know the wild flowers of your own 
neighborhood, you will be at home with the flowers of 
any neighborhood, wherever you may be a pilgrim or a 
sojourner. As you motor through the country year after 
year, the same majestic trees will talk to you, and if you 
know their names and their habits, the countryside, 
whether highway or byway, will offer a hospitality that 
is unknown to those who do not understand the fra- 
ternity of the trees. More and more the bird lovers will 
outnumber the "pot-hunters." Boys and girls of the 
future are going to know the wood folk better than then- 
fathers and mothers have done, if only because of the 
great increase in camp life. 

The avocations of Jesus Christ. — We not only think 
of Jesus Christ as the friend of the people, as our friend, 
but we know that he had his own special friends besides 



120 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

his beloved disciple, John, Mary, and Martha and 
Lazarus. Then he loved the flowers! He speaks of them 
again and again as he talks to the people. He knew the 
birds and foxes and the wild animals that roamed over 
the hills of Galilee. And then he knew the writings of 
his people. He quotes again and again from the writings 
of the Jews. Harry Fosdick, in a book called The Man- 
hood of the Master, draws our attention to the radiant 
nature of Jesus Christ, and emphasizes these three 
characteristics, which we call specialties, in which Jesus 
rejoiced — his love of friends, his love of nature, and 
his enjoyment of Israel's great book, the Old Testament. 
Have you these three avocations already? Do you know 
what you really like best besides actual play and real 
work? It is a test of your breadth as it was of Jesus' to 
find solace in something besides mere play and strenuous 
work. 

MEMORY QUOTATION 
A Loftier Race 

These things shall be — a loftier race 

Than e'er the world hath known shall rise 

With flame of freedom in their souls, 
And light of knowledge in their eyes. 

They shall be gentle, brave, and strong 
To spill no drop of blood, but dare 

All that may plant man's lordship firm 
On earth, and fire, and sea, and air. 

Nation with nation, land with land, 
Unarmed shall live as comrades free; 

In every heart and brain shall throb 
The pulse of one fraternity. 




Hofmann 

CHRIST IN THE HOME OF MARY AND MARTHA 



WHEN BECOME A SPECIALIST? 121 

New arts shall bloom of loftier mold, 
And mightier music thrill the skies, 

And every life shall be a song 
When all the earth is paradise. 

There shall be no more sin, nor shame, 
Though pain and passion may not die, 

For man shall be at one with God 
In bonds of firm necessity. 

— John Addington Symonds, 1880. 

STUDY TOPICS 

1. Name some of the great specialists to-day in America 

in art, in invention, in industry, in education, in 
service to humanity. 

2. Why are these great men and women greater than so 

many others who are specialists? 

3. Name some men and women who are not specialists 

who have "made good" because they are "all 
round." 

4. Make a survey of the studies that you have already 

taken which you are using constantly even though 
you are still boys and girls. 

5. To-day you are doubtless interested in certain spe- 

cialties in a temporary way. As you think of these 
temporary interests, might they be stepping-stones 
to something finer and better later on? 

6. What are the requirements for expression through 

writing? Have you acquired these qualifications for 
r easy conversation? 

7. You have a succession of work and play, play and 

work. Is it true that you can differentiate between 
the two? What are your games? What are your 
studies? Where do they mingle? Have you any of 
your father's characteristics and what character- 
istics has he which are not unlike a boy's? 



122 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

8. Have you now any training that will help you by and 

by as resources? What can you do in little things 
now that will count big things by and by? 

9. Take a map of the United States and follow its growth 

from the little towns along the Atlantic coast across 
the continent. Show how little settlements have 
developed into great ones; how the little settlement 
by the Hudson grew into New Amsterdam and 
New Amsterdam into the great city of New York, 
and how the little Chicago grew into the great 
Chicago. In the same way your lives are growing. 
10. Prove by quotation from the words of Jesus that he 
was a good naturalist, basing the proof on Charles 
Kingsley, the English rector's saying that "he is a 
thoroughly good naturalist who knows his own 
parish thoroughly." 

Text: 

Study to show thyself approved unto God, a work- 
man that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing 
the word of truth. — 2 Timothy 2:15. 



CHAPTER XX 

SAVE FOR THE SUNNY DAY 

The title of this chapter, of course, makes you recall 
at once the ever-present challenge to save for the "rainy 
day." But we like better the thought that as we tuck 
away a penny here and a penny there, now and then a 
dime, and by and by dollars, that we are saving them 
for something very much worth while, something that 
will bring happiness not only to ourselves but to others. 
For many there is good reason to save for the sunny day 
when a dream shall come true — a complete outfit of 
clothing to meet growing needs, a croquet or tennis set, 
a baseball or football outfit, a pigeon house, a hive of 
bees, a bicycle, a cornet or violin or a piano. Just as 
your tastes change so the object for which you are 
saving your money becomes larger and more important. 

RAINY DAYS 

Of course we do save for the rainy days. This pro- 
gram for happy, wholesome thrift is upset by accident, 
illness, and bad seasons, so we must save something for 
what is commonly called "the rainy day" when work 
stops, earning stops, and expenses go on, especially, if 
there are doctor's and druggist's bills growing larger all 
the time. 

Wealth. — Everybody knows the value of money, the 
value of gold and silver, nickel and copper money. All 
grown-up people know the value of stocks and bonds, 
houses and land. Then there are precious jewels, pic- 

123 



i2 4 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

tures that axe invaluable, rare books that sell for 
enormous sums of money, antique rugs with huge prices 
attached to them, and fine old lace for which one may 
spend thousands of dollars. All these things we call 
wealth, but these possessions are wealth only as long as 
they can be exchanged. No matter how young you are, 
it is possible for you to begin to save money toward the 
purchase of some of these beautiful things, and while 
you are very young there are other things quite as 
beautiful and useful as all the things mentioned, for 
which you want to save. 

Increasing knowledge. — In other words, when boys 
and girls are as old as you are it is a great satisfaction 
to know that you have been able to put into the bank a 
certain sum of money for this sunny day when you are 
to use it for something very much worth while. If every 
year you put into the bank one hundred dollars, by the 
time you are through your schooling there will be more 
than enough money saved for you to travel before you 
go into business or take up a profession. And traveling, 
you know, means a very sunny day which will add to 
your growth of mind, for traveling means not only 
scenery and wonderful buildings that have historic 
memories connected with them, but also it means meet- 
ing people from all parts of the world. You go to Eng- 
land and you understand better than you could possibly 
understand from reading what English boys and girls 
are like, how a game of cricket in England differs from a 
cricket game in America, how the crews in the Thames 
River pull their oars, and how the life in the houseboats 
differs from life in the clubs in this country. You go to 
France and you see how the peasants live in their little 
cottages. You go to Paris and see the wonderful life of 
that great city going on day and night. 



SAVE FOR THE SUNNY DAY 125 

A challenge. — All this opens your mind and makes 
you understand better than you could possibly under- 
stand from books the great thing for which we are striv- 
ing at present — better friendship between countries, 
international relationships that mean doing away with 
war and furthering the brotherhood of man. Just as 
Jesus Christ had an understanding of the Sadducees 
and the men of Capernaum and the tradesmen of 
Nazareth, just as it was possible for him to come and go 
among the rich and the poor, the wise and the humble, 
so you, as you save money for the sunny day, can travel 
on the highways and byways of the world and grow 
more understanding, grow more like Christ in his life 
amongst the people. 

A growing library. — This one hundred dollars that 
you had saved every year for ten years will be more than 
enough, we have said, for travel. Some of it may be spent 
for books that tell you of the countries before you travel 
to them and through them. If every year you spent 
five dollars, think how many books at the end of ten 
years you would own! — a book on France, on Italy, on 
Germany, and on Holland; half a dozen books on 
England, because it is our mother country, and you will 
wish to know more about the great poets, the dramatists, 
the essayists, and the novelists who have laid founda- 
tions of our wonderful literature. 

LOOK AHEAD 

Just as one at your age saves pennies and perhaps 
dimes to buy a record for the victrola, so saving money 
for the sunny day means putting something aside for 
great music, in order that one may hear the oratorios at 
Christmas or Easter, or the symphonies during the 
winter season. 



126 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

You see, boys and girls, the important thing is to be 
wise enough to look ahead. Just remember how the 
squirrels look ahead and save their nuts for the long 
winter season, when they do not have the open fields 
over which to hunt. 

The habit of saving. — There was once a little girl 
whose father and mother both felt that saving for the 
sunny day should begin when she was very young, in 
order that she might acquire the habit of thinking about 
saving; so, when Hilda was three and a half years old, 
her father promised her fifty cents toward a doll's car- 
riage if she would earn part of the money. The doll's 
carriage was to cost a dollar, and little Hilda promised 
to work toward her "sunny day" — the happy possession 
of a carriage for her doll. It took the little girl a long 
time to earn her fifty cents. She worked hard helping 
the maid and doing errands for her mother. Finally the 
day came when her father gave her fifty cents to go 
with her fifty pennies, and the doll's carriage was hers. 
She folded her little arms with a sigh of satisfaction and 
ejaculated, "There, I have my doll's carriage, and I 
shall never do another day's work!" At least, so she 
then thought. She had earned her "sunny day" with 
such hardships that she had no expectation of future 
effort. She was very young to begin to plan for a "sunny 
day," as she was only three years old, but since she has 
grown older, this habit of saving has made of her a wise 
banker, one who looks forward into a large future of 
sunshine. 

How many of you have begun to save for the "sunny 
day"? And how many of you really know the kind of 
a "sunny day" you want? And how many of you after 
studying this chapter and thinking about it, will begin 
to save for a "sunny day"? 



SAVE FOR THE SUNNY DAY 127 

Andrew Carnegie, William Rockefeller and Russell 
Sage were poor boys; but each one of them saw the 
chance to save. Whatever they earned they stored away 
in such a manner that it might bring interest, that 
interest making more capital, and that capital bringing 
more interest. You see, there was always the vision of 
by-and-by. 

Satisfactions. — Remember that you are not saving 
just for the sake of the money. There is always the 
vision of by-and-by because you are storing away 
capital and interest, interest and capital, for the sake 
of the "sunny day"; the day that will bring travel and 
books and knowledge and wide helpfulness to others. 
These are things worth thinking about; these are things 
worth striving for. 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Come, ye thankful people, come, 
Raise the song of harvest-home: 
All is safely gathered in, 
Ere the winter storms begin; 
God, our Maker, doth provide 
For our wants to be supplied: 
Come to God's own temple, come, 
Raise the song of harvest-home. 

All the world is God's own field, 
Fruit unto his praise to yield; 
Wheat and tares together sown, 
Unto joy or sorrow grown; 
First the blade, and then the ear, 
Then the full corn shall appear: 
Lord of harvest, grant that we 
Wholesome grain and pure shall be. 

— Henry Alford. 



128 LIVING AT OUR BEST 



STUDY TOPICS 



i. Examine yourself and select from your natural gifts 
what you are rich in above your companions. 

2. What you are poor in? 

3. Think out a way to average yourself up in knowledge 

of books, woodcraft, mechanics, sewing, cooking, 
letter-writing, and sports. 

4. Try out a plan to share some particular over-wealth of 

yours with others: 

(a) If you have a large knowledge of birds start a 

bird-club; 

(b) If you own a number of good books form with 

others an exchange library; 

(c) Lend to those who have few books or none; 

(d) Start a magazine club among your friends of 

those who can afford to subscribe to only one 
paper. 

5. How can you change a rainy day into a sunny one, as 

in the case of a picnic? 

6. How, a sunny day into a "rainy" one by carelessness? 

7. What does it mean to "realize" on a debt? 

Text: 

Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in 
the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, 
let him hear. — Matthew 13: 43. 



CHAPTER XXI 

RICH TOWARD GOD 

You will notice that the text for to-day is quoted 
from the first Psalm: 

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel 
of the ungodly. 

And one can add from Psalm thirty-third, 

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord) 

whom God has chosen for his own inheritance, his 
peculiar people. Loyalty to God and loyalty to one's 
country are not the same; but a Christian can be loyal to 
both only when his country's God is the Lord. All 
through the Old Testament the people of Israel were in 
dire distress, even when they seemed great and mighty 
in their civil government, because they forsook God. 
"Righteousness exalte th a nation." Sin is a reproach 
and puts disgrace upon the people. 

HAGGAI THE PROPHET 

In the Old Testament there is a little book of Haggai 
which makes us feel that the prophet must have served 
as a model for our own twentieth-century Mr. Hoover. 
This prophet, Haggai, kept himself out of sight while he 
made use of the son of the governor and the high priest 
to carry word to the people. The fact was that the 
people of Israel had forgotten God. They were rich in 
a business way. They had fine homes or "ceiled houses," 

129 



130 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

as the text runs; but the temple was out of repair and 
it was time for the prophet to stir the people and show 
them that they were favoring themselves at the expense 
of God. 

Dull of understanding. — 

Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but 
ye have not enough; ... ye clothe you, but there 
is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth 
wages to put it into a bag with holes. 

Haggai in his devotion to God stirred up all Israel just 
as Mr. Hoover in the darkest days of the Great War 
stirred up all America to work and save and give to the 
starving Belgians. It was not until Mr. Hoover had 
stirred the people that the Americans really entered into 
the war with a flaming heart, and it was not until the 
modest Haggai, prophet and friend of God, stirred the 
dull people of his age that they saw that they had done 
wrong. Then it was that Haggai told them that God 
was punishing them through the destructive winds and 
drought from which they had all been suffering. 

Haggafs tact. — The people had been so dull they 
did not understand the meanings of the Lord's scourg- 
ings; but they did understand what Haggai's plain 
words, uttered in everyday language, really meant. You 
see, Haggai appealed to the people, and they responded. 
They began at once to push ahead the work of laying 
the foundations of the temple. In fact, according to the 
story, they built the temple in less than four months — 
in record-breaking time! 

Then Haggai, the Lord's messenger, brought the 
people a fresh message from the Almighty: "I am with 
you, saith the Lord." 

Consecration to work. — Dr. Lyman Abbott has said 



RICH TOWARD GOD 131 

in one of his essays that the greatness of a nation is not 
measured by its fruitful acres, but by the men who 
cultivate those acres; not by great forests, but by the 
men who use the forests; not by its mines, but by the 
men who work them. 

America was a great land when Columbus discovered 
it; Americans have made of it a great nation. This 
making a nation great can be done by consecration and 
self-control and stick-to-it-iveness. These qualities made 
Abraham Lincoln a great man, and they made a great 
man of Haggai. 

William Gladstone was another person who possessed 
richness toward God. When he was only twelve years 
of age his father began with him a systematic course 
in the science of government. An hour each day was 
devoted to study of politics and finance. When guests 
came to visit in the Gladstone home they were surprised 
to hear the father, who was an eminent banker and a 
member of Parliament, talking in a grave manner about 
complicated problems with his son, who seemed quite 
able to discuss with enthusiasm the subjects. Thus the 
boy was trained for statecraft when he was very young. 
When a few years later Gladstone was a student at Eton 
the same political training was continued, and by the 
time he had reached Oxford University he had won 
celebrity as a debater and orator. So it is not strange 
that we find Gladstone at the age of twenty sitting in 
Parliament, and two years later we read that he was 
named by Peel as Junior Lord of the Treasury. 

Now, the point is that Gladstone's steadfast aim was 
to bring Christ into the political life which he was help- 
ing to shape. His whole aim was to reconcile political 
life with the Sermon on the Mount. He was so filled 
with the grace of God in his heart that he wanted the 



i 3 2 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

teachings of Jesus Christ to permeate the minds of all 
men in public life. 

If our young men in this generation right here in our 
own country could catch the spirit which Gladstone had, 
many of our political ills would vanish. 

Or, to go farther back in history than the Victorian 
age, to go back to the days of the Puritans and challenge 
our modern political aspirants with the inspiration of 
men like Hampden, Pym, and Cromwell, the youth of 
to-day would find great examples. 

Edward Markham, in his poem, "The Need of the 
Hour," in speaking of loyalty to the nation, and rich- 
ness toward God, writes these lines: 

"We need the Cromwell fire to make us feel 
The common burden and the public trust 
To be a thing as sacred and august 
As the white vigil where the angels kneel. 
We need the faith to go a path untrod, 
The power to be alone and vote with God/' 1 

THE CHALLENGE 

What are you going to do about it, boys and girls? 
As yet, perhaps, no special thought has come to you, but 
these are days of preparation, and just as God requires 
of you that you live them in a spirit of courage, keen 
about your work and keen about your play, so too he 
expects you, through prayer and the reading of his Word, 
to get into close touch with his mind and heart and so 
be one with him in his beauty and lovingness. Then 
will you be rich toward God; and being rich, you will 
become loyal, for loyalty is the bank account upon which 
we can always draw if we truly love. The more we love 
the more loyal we are, and the more ready we are to 
serve Go d and our fellow men because of our loyalty. 

1 Lincoln and Other Poems, by Edwin Markham. 




SERMON ON THE MOUNT 



RICH TOWARD GOD 133 

THE PRIZE CODE 

A number of years ago a prize of five thousand dollars 
was offered to anyone who could suggest a code of con- 
duct which would inspire boys and girls to be better and 
more active citizens. We cannot quote all the splendid 
points which the prize-winner suggested, but we can 
remember a few of the fine things which challenged the 
young people who are studying the code. 

LOYALTY. — 1 : I will be loyal to my family. In loyalty, 
I will gladly obey my parents or those 
in their place. I will do my best to 
help each member of my family to 
gain in strength and usefulness. 

2 : I will be loyal to my school. In loyalty, 
I will obey and help other pupils to 
obey. 

3 : I will be loyal to my town, my State, my 
country. In loyalty, I will respect and 
help others to respect the laws and 
courts of justice. 

4 : I will be loyal to humanity. In loyalty, 
I will do my best to help the friendly 
relations of our country with every 
other country, and to give to everyone 
in every land the best possible chance. 

If I try to be loyal simply to my family I may be 
disloyal to my school. If I try to be loyal simply to my 
school, I may be disloyal to my town, State, and my 
country. If I try to be loyal simply to my town, my 
State, and my country, I may be disloyal to humanity. 
I will try above all things else to be loyal to humanity; 
then I shall surely be loyal to my country, my State, and 
my town, to my school and my family. 



i 3 4 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Breast the wave, Christian, 

When it is strongest; 
Watch for day, Christian, 

When the night's longest; 
Onward and onward still, 

Be thine endeavor; 
The rest that remaineth, 

Will be forever. 

Fight the fight, Christian, 

Jesus is o'er thee; 
Run the race, Christian, 

Heaven is before thee; 
He who hath promised 

Faltereth never; 
The rest that remaineth, 

Will be forever. 

— J. B. S. Monsell. 

STUDY TOPICS 

i. Who is Mr. Hoover? What has he done? What is he 
doing? 

2. Who was Haggai? 

3. Why was the temple neglected? 

4. Why do we think that the story of Haggai the Prophet 

is in any way similar to the work of Mr. Hoover? 

5. Have we been dull? What is likely to make men of 

one generation or another dull to the meaning of 
God's scourgings ? 

6. We say that Haggai 's spirit was a foreshadowing of 

Christ. To-day we see many men who go about 
fulfilling Christ's charges to his disciples. Are you 
old enough to realize that the Lord saith to us, 
"Work, for I am with you," and that it is true to- 



RICH TOWARD GOD 135 

day that he does prosper the work that is being 
done by the eager leaders in all welfare work? 

7. Make a list of the men and women to-day who are 

leaders in feeding the children of Europe. In making 
better the conditions for children in this country. 
In starting projects for international peace. 

8. Watch the newspapers for a week and see how many 

cuttings you can bring into class along these lines 
of work. 

9. Good men and women are carrying on the same kind 

of work that the simple, practical man of high 
vision, the prophet Haggai, carried on in his day 
and generation. 

10. What besides the temple itself was Haggai working 

for? 

11. What besides Belgium was Mr. Hoover working for? 

Text: 

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel 
of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, 
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. — Psalms 1:1. 



CHAPTER XXII 

HIGH ADVENTURE 

Don't you think it must be a very wonderful thing 
to be a reformer, an inventor or a worker who has used 
his head as well as his hands to create something al- 
together new, something which no one else has ever 
done? For the last hundred years men have been invent- 
ing all kinds of mechanical things, from sewing machines 
to airships, and always through history one finds re- 
formers who have tried to make the world better. 

DREAMS AND VISIONS 

But to be an inventor or a reformer takes something 
which most of us have not developed even if we have it. 
Some people call it faith; others call it high adventure; 
taking a chance, one might say, in one's own dream, in 
one's own vision. 

Looking into the future. — In the Old Testament 
days young men did see visions and old men did dream 
dreams, but to-day there are no old men; or, if there 
are, they do not talk very much about the past, for every- 
one is looking into the future. Everyone longs for new 
experience. Everyone has an untamed desire to expe- 
rience the untried. 

Probably animals have no such desires for new expe- 
riences. They seem to love the old ways best. They 
crave the comfort of doing things in the same way. Even 
domestic animals are quite satisfied with following their 
ancestors' ways of traveling or lying down or reveling in 

136 



HIGH ADVENTURE 137 

the food which is given to them, be it a bone or manu- 
factured dogmeat. They growl and tear and eat with 
quite the manners of the wild beasts. But this higher 
animal with a soul, this man or woman, this you and I, 
are all eager with what we call faith. We "hitch our 
wagon to a star" and we work like a galley slave for the 
thing we have in mind. Think of Columbus and Galileo! 
Think of Admiral Peary; or General Goethals. Faith 
takes different forms. Not one of the men whom we 
have mentioned had faith just like that of the others. 
Saint Paul says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped 
for, the evidence of things not seen." So it is with every 
inventor, whether he is a boy making a little water wheel 
that will turn in a brook, or a man who sees a new kind 
of machinery which will make adventure in the air safer 
and swifter; it matters not. The boy inventor and the 
great scientist alike have faith in the substance of things 
hoped for and more than hoped for. The vision is there, 
the vision which they purpose to materialize through 
physical forces into reality. 

But it is not only the high adventure which comes with 
making things or reforming things which takes faith. 
No, nor the faith that one has to use to write a book or 
paint a picture or transcribe the music that one hears in 
one's soul. There must also be faith in oneself and faith 
in one's fellow men. 

EVERYDAY ADVENTURE 

When we get up in the morning and say good-by to 
the home as off we go to school, there is a mystery about 
it. Otherwise going to school might be very dull to boys 
and girls. Something wonderful will happen. It may be 
that the lesson will be more interesting than usual. The 
teacher may have something remarkable to relate. One 



138 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

may meet an old friend whom he has not seen for 
months. 

The day's "fate." — All manner of mysteries are held 
in the day's history. But one cannot leave one's home 
in the morning for this adventure without faith in one- 
self as well as faith in what the day holds — faith that 
we will keep our promises to our parents, faith that we 
know our lessons, faith that our friends are going to 
trust us. All this is high adventure. All this makes the 
prosy day over into a fairy story. Dickens' novel Great 
Expectations portrays little Pip. We are all of us little 
Pips in one way or another. "Fate takes us and uses 
us," a philosopher says, but you and I like better to think 
that because not a sparrow falls without God's knowl- 
edge, so too we are in the hands of God each day and not 
in the hands of an inexorable fate. Our high adventure 
when we are conscious of our fellowship with Jesus 
Christ, becomes a very delightful adventure, and our 
faith becomes fact or experience, and our belief becomes 
conviction. We live at our best. 

faith in Christ's life and teaching 

Jesus Christ makes of our faith in God a reality be- 
cause he shows us the way his own faith in his heavenly 
Father brought him the fullest and noblest kind of daily 
living. His whole life and teaching shows us the possi- 
bility of living in happy harmony of purpose and work 
with our heavenly Father. Jesus Christ had not only 
faith in his Father but in himself. He said again and 
again, "I do always the things that are well pleasing to 
him," and he said this because he also said, "I and my 
Father are one." You see, through his life and teaching 
we learn from Jesus Christ that faith is not just a pleas- 
ing sentiment ; it is a rule to live by and to live with 



HIGH ADVENTURE 139 

day by day. Faith in ourselves, faith in our neighbors 
and friends, and above and beyond everything else, faith 
in God as Father and Friend will help us to live as 
Christ lived. 

Boys and girls of faith are carrying on Christ's work 
in this world. 

MEMORY QUOTATION 
The Eternal Goodness 

And so beside the silent sea 

I wait with muffled oar, 
No harm can come from Him to me 

On ocean or on shore. 

I know not where his islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air; 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond his love and care. 

— John Greenleaf Whittier. 

STUDY TOPICS 

1. In the social and economic fields of activity how far 

do you suppose faith helps the workers of the world? 
For instance, in the banking world do men have to 
have faith when they put their money in the bank? 
In the commercial world, as men send their goods to 
South America or to Europe, how much faith do you 
suppose it takes? 

2. Imagine how unhappy and worried we should be, when 

we write to friends far away, if we did not have faith 
in our post-office service. Think of other social re- 
lationships that take faith to keep people contented 
and satisfied. 

3. In the moral and spiritual world what about our faith? 



i 4 o LIVING AT OUR BEST 

4. What does Jesus Christ say about faith that is the size 
of a mustard seed? Again what does he say about 
faith and removing mountains? What does Saint 
John say about faith? What kind of faith did Saint 
Paul have? The faith of Saint John led him to what 
. revelations? 

Text: 

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the 
evidence of things not seen. — Hebrews 11: 1. 



Ill 



HAPPINESS BASED ON CONFORMITY TO 
LAW AND SERVICE 



CHAPTER XXIII 
HAPPINESS 

If we thought only of our health and our wealth, if 
we dwelt only upon how we feel physically and how 
much money or time or work we earn or invest every 
day, surely we would not be living at our best. 

Besides health and wealth, happiness is necessary to 
make up a worth-while life. 

"If happiness has not her seat 
And center in the breast, 
You may be wise or rich or great, 
But never can be blest." 

This old-fashioned verse I suppose means that happiness 
is a state of mind independent of things and conditions 
outside of ourselves. That is quite true. Health and 
wealth in themselves cannot insure happiness, for happi- 
ness may come in spite of sickness or in spite of poverty 
or even ignorance, but at the same time happiness does 
come through "things," for has not Stevenson said, and 
said bravely, 

"The world is so full of a number of things, 
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings." 

PUTTING AWAY CHILDISH THINGS 

The "things" all depend upon how old you are and 
the kind of philosophy you have and the everyday 

143 



144 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

experiences which make up your way of looking at things. 
For, of course, your ideas of happiness do constantly 
change. 

Changing values. — Ice-cream cones are not all they 
used to be to the girl or boy who has become deeply 
interested in some new end, as a game of baseball, or 
drawing a lovely picture, or playing the violin. Literally 
you would rather do something else than eat. At five or 
six years of age you were quite happy with dolls and 
balls and all kinds of playthings. But new things came 
and you outgrew the kind of toys that gave you pleasure 
at seven. You put away childish things. It is not that 
you do not still love toys and games. You simply have 
learned to enjoy another and a more grown-up kind. So 
too you have learned to get happiness through a different 
kind of expression of affection. You no longer sit in your 
mother's lap and let her rock you, but, oh, mothers are 
so dear, dearer at fourteen than they were at seven, 
dearer at twenty-one than they were at fourteen. 

Happiness from within. — All this is because you, the 
inner you, the growing you, have a larger outlook on life, 
and, of course, all the time happiness is beckoning to 
you not only out of a maturity of new things but out of 
your own inner self which is constantly growing; and 
therefore your happiness is larger, much larger than 
when you were little children. Happiness does so much 
depend upon yourselves, this inner you. In fact, the 
height of your happiness oftentimes is in the perfect 
concentration of the doing of the thing rather than in 
the thing done. Just so long as your whole heart and 
soul is bent upon this thing you find happiness. 

GROWN-UP HAPPINESS 

The happiest man we know is Jesus. 



HAPPINESS 145 

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts 
unto your children, how much more shall your 
Father which is in heaven give good gifts to them 
that ask him. 

A sure source of happiness. — Jesus taught men to 
understand their heavenly Father in a new way. He 
wanted everyone to realize that in the love of God lies 
man's greatest happiness; that only in the love of God 
lies real happiness, and as he taught his disciples the 
story of God's love for his children, there was a joyous- 
ness or happiness about him that is the most lasting 
characteristic we have in his life. "My joy I give unto 
you, and your joy no man taketh from you." He was 
an unconquerable soul. 

And we are masters of our souls. We too can find 
happiness as Jesus did in the oneness with our Father in 
heaven. If you boys and girls read very carefully the 
story of Jesus in the Gospels, you will find that his happi- 
ness consisted in choosing those things which are perma- 
nent rather than fleeting. 

LASTING DELIGHT 

We think it might be of interest for you to note during 
the coming week the difference between fleeting pleasure 
and lasting delight. Some of you are quite sure that you 
enjoy certain physical or mental pleasures which others 
may not enjoy even for the time being. One group may 
get a kind of happiness which comes from reading or 
playing upon the piano or violin; others in another 
group take great delight in outdoor sports. These may 
be called fleeting pleasures, and yet after all, the effect 
of such temporary happinesses does not altogether leave 
us, for the memory of them is permanent and they are 



146 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

springs of untold happiness in moments of leisure when 
we command our memory to give us quiet satisfaction. 
There are other fleeting pleasures which may not be 
called up as memories unless there go with the pleasures 
the memories of friendship. Now, a game of football 
may be thrilling in itself for the time being, but the 
recollection of it is not largely a happiness unless we as- 
sociate with it the pleasure of sitting out of doors with 
great crowds or enjoying the fellowship of some friend 
who has accompanied us to the game. 

You will wonder, as you test yourself, whether the 
fleeting pleasure of eating a delicious dinner, of buying 
a new frock or suit of clothes, has in it the satisfaction 
which will last, or whether it is a fleeting pleasure. You 
may receive a letter which brings you joy; you may 
receive grades in school which give you certain pride in 
your achievement; you may contest in a game and win 
the prize. The point is in each case, will it be a lasting 
delight, or will you forget in a few days the pleasure 
which you received temporarily? 

Lasting happiness. — So it is that some pleasures 
are fleeting, and continued happiness does not come be- 
cause of the pleasures; but real happiness does come 
when one undertakes to work for others. 

As Christ lived. — Living at our best, we have said 
over and over again, means trying to live as Jesus Christ 
did, in his home with his mother and Joseph and his 
little brothers and sisters; with the fishermen whom he 
gathered about him as his disciples; with the people 
whom he met on the highways and byways round about 
Jerusalem. 

Relationship with God. — Jesus was, above all else, 
happy in his relationship with his heavenly Father. 
These happinesses cannot be taken away and do not slip 




CHRIST AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA 



HAPPINESS- 147 

out of one's mind, as the football game may be forgotten 
or the new suit of clothes. 

I wonder if you see what we mean; I wonder if already 
you can count the lasting happinesses of the week as well 
as the fleeting pleasures of the week, and determine 
which list is the longer. Perhaps another week, now 
that we have talked of happiness, there will be a longer 
list than ever, in which you will delight because you 
know that by and by, no matter how old you are or how 
gray you are — even three score years and ten — the 
memory of these happinesses will be part of your conso- 
lation. Virgil said, "It will be pleasant to remember 
these things in the hereafter." 

MEMORY QUOTATION 
A Soldier's Speech 

"Looking back in life I can see no earthly good which 
has come to me so great, so sweet, so uplifting, so con- 
soling as the friendships of the men and the women I 
have known well and loved — friends who have been 
equally ready to give and to receive kind offices and 
timely counsel. Nothing will steady and strengthen you 
like real friends, who will speak the frank words of truth 
tempered with affection — friends who will help you and 
never count the cost. Friendship is the full-grown team- 
play of life, and in my eyes there is no limit to its value." 1 

STUDY TOPICS 

1. What do we mean by saying that happiness is a ' 'state 

of mind"? 

2. Give illustrations of this description of happiness. 

(a) Give an instance when an hour has gone like a 
moment. 

1 From Ethics for Children, Ella Lyman Cabot, p. 180. Houghton Mifflin Company. 



148 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

(b) Where time has hung so heavily on your hands 
that an hour has seemed like a whole morning. 

3. Is it true that happiness, to be complete, must be 

shared with others? 

4. Give an illustration of instances where the unexpected 

arrival of some dear friend has brought peculiar 
happiness. 

5. If you have a dog, is your happiness complete only if 

he follow you upon a walk in the woods? What is 
this need of companionship? 

6. Why do we find happiness in knowing the great char- 

acters of history and the heroes and heroines of 
fiction? Is it only because we love to share with them 
the experiences which the author has given to them ? 

7. (a) Give an instance when your ideas were torn be- 

tween two or more objects and great unhappiness 
followed, 
(b) Give an illustration of where there was no unhappi- 
ness because your attention was not divided and 
you could really say that the old adage, "Be 
good and you will be happy," was proved in 
your own case. 

Text: 

Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye 
have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the 
end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and 
of tender mercy. — James 5: n. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
EACH FOR ALL 

There is an expression which we all hear constantly 
to-day but which you could not find in any books which 
were written in the last century. The phrase is "social 
service." It seems to be a twentieth-century slogan. 
Many of us hope that it stands for something so un- 
selfish and worth while that it will give to this twentieth 
century a character that will distinguish it above all 
other centuries. 

You will meet this idea of social service upon the 
pages of Sunday-school magazines; you will hear it 
discussed in the civic classes of the public schools; it 
inspires the work in college and social settlements; and 
in all educational institutions where Americanization is 
helping to make the immigrant a worthy citizen. 

A REAL COMMUNITY 

One of the finest expressions of social service is a play- 
ground planned as a memorial to the soldiers who died 
in the Great War. 

The playground is in the town of Needham, Massachu- 
setts. Decoration Day, 192 1, was appropriately chosen 
for beginning the work, as it was voted by the town 
that all the citizens of Needham should be asked to take 
part in making the playground. 

Working together. — It began with leveling a hill- 
side. Every man, woman, and child in the town took 
part. Spades and shovels were brought from homes, 

149 



150 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

horses and wagons were lent by their owners, wheel- 
barrows and motor trucks were donated for the use of 
the town for this great undertaking. At noon all work 
stopped and a picnic lunch was served. Everybody sat 
about and enjoyed the luncheon. Everybody sang after 
the dessert, and by evening everybody had finished his 
or her piece of work which had been contributed as their 
part toward the making of the playground. Had this 
undertaking been done by a firm for dollars and cents, 
it would have cost thousands, but how much more 
beautiful that the people of the home town should have 
united in one day's labor of love. It was a real memorial 
to those boys who had given all across the water. The 
Needham boys and girls will be bigger hearted because 
of this memorial playground. It will be an inspiration 
to them. They will have a standard of living at their 
best to follow all their lives because of the work that 
was done on Memorial Day in 1921. 

INTERDEPENDENCE 

We are all dependent upon one another and cannot 
get along alone. In Paul's First Epistle to the Corinth- 
ians he writes: 

If the whole body were an eye, where were the 
hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the 
smelling? But now hath God set the members every 
one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And 
if they were all one member, where were the body? 
But now are they many members, yet but one body. 
. . . And whether one member suffer, all the mem- 
bers suffer with it; or one member be honored, all 
the members rejoice with it. Now, ye are the body 
of Christ, and members in particular. 

Members one of another. — Because of this inter- 



EACH FOR ALL 151 

dependence it is natural for us to want to help one 
another. In the family fathers and mothers and children 
all work together. We never hear in a loving home such 
expressions as "I have no need of you," between brothers 
and sisters, or "I have no need of you," between fathers 
and mothers. Helpfulness grows out of our understand- 
ing that we all are interdependent, that each one is a 
member of the whole and the moment that we are 
helpers we begin to realize our power, the vital power 
within us which makes us the children of God. Every 
day we are doing something for somebody or else some- 
body is doing something for us. What happy verses 
these are to think about if we are the somebody of whom 
they sing! — 

"Somebody did a golden deed, 
Somebody proved a friend in need; 
Somebody sang a beautiful song; 
Brightening the skies the whole day long — 
Was that somebody you? 

"Somebody thought, * 'Tis sweet to live'; 
Willingly said, 'I'm glad to give'; 
Somebody fought a valiant fight ; 
Bravely he lived to shield the right — 
Was that somebody you?" 

DOING VERSUS TALKING 

Grown-up people love the words "duty" and "service" 
and "happiness" and "faith." Grown-up people love the 
word "democracy." You see, grown-up people know 
that democracy comes from the Greek word denios, 
meaning "the people"; and they like to think that the 
United States is governed "by the people," who believe 
in duty and service based upon the faith in God and our 



152 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

country and the kind of happiness that comes from co- 
operating for the commonwealth or common weal. 

Now, you boys and girls are just at the age when you 
are beginning to be helpful and to do things for other 
people. But you are not like the grown-up people, you 
do not like their "preachy" words which are so often 
used by your parents and teachers in connection with 
the doing of helpful things for each and all. You boys 
and girls care much more for the particular occasion on 
which some other boy or girl has done a fine deed than 
the talking about the doing of the deed. 

In other words, you boys and girls have begun to 
carry out certain laws for team work by actually taking 
part in activities. And you have so successfully shown 
the grown-ups that you are doing fine deeds that the 
author of the Prize Code of Conduct has incorporated 
those laws into the Code. They are as follows: 

i. In whatever work I do with others I will do my part 
and help others to do their part. 

2. I will keep in order the things which I use in my 

work. When things are out of place they are often 
in the way and sometimes hard to find. Disorder 
means confusion and the waste of time and 
patience. 

3. In all my work with others I will be cheerful. Cheer- 

lessness depresses all the workers and endangers all 
the work. 

Anecdotes of team work. — This team work, or work- 
ing each for all, can be carried out everywhere. Only the 
other day we read of a great athlete who was stretched 
out in his bed in a hospital ward in one of our large cities. 
One would never have thought he was an athlete, for 
he had grown very frail from being bed-ridden. He is a 
cripple, isn't he? Yes, a cripple now, but years ago he 



EACH FOR ALL 153 

played on a team in college. He was hurt for life in 
pulling a child out from under a runaway horse's hoofs. 
He is now having the test of his life, he says, and he is 
putting the whole ward in training. He tells the people 
in the hospital that everybody has some position in the 
world's team and the invalids have the hardest line of 
all to hold. Cheerfully he cries out, "Our place is the 
hardest, but the team needs us the most," and all the 
other invalids in the ward are keen with the idea, so they 
are in training. They do not tell their symptoms and they 
do not wonder why they have to suffer. They hold on 
to their irritable tempers, and they try not to be hope- 
less. They have begun to be athletes themselves in this 
new team just because this cripple knows how to work 
with the group. He knows how to play on a team and 
so the doctor told the visitor that the strongest man on 
the football team to-day is not so strong as the bed- 
ridden athlete. There may be boys and girls reading 
this lesson who have to hold a hard line in the world's 
team. The important thing is not to shirk. The next 
important thing is to help someone else not to shirk. 

TEAM WORK THROUGH THE CHURCH 

The big thing about the history of the church is the 
splendid team work that has been going on for two 
thousand years, ever since the disciples started the first 
little churches in the name of Christ. "Where two or 
three are gathered together in my name" makes a team 
with Jesus Christ and God working with us. The great 
enterprises of the church have always been started by a 
few, but those few have been dynamic forces because 
each one has felt his responsibility to the whole, his 
responsibility to God in his furtherance of God's church. 

Albert Donald says: "There are many things which 



154 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

God wants to do which he cannot do unless someone 
helps him. Every one of us can help God do something 
that needs to be done." And Bishop Creighton says, 
something which I feel you will not forget, because I 
know boys and girls love to walk arm in arm with each 
other. The Bishop writes: "What did God give you the 
crook in your arm for? Why, surely, to hook it into 
some other fellow's!" 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Each and All 

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown 

Of thee from the hill-top looking down; 

The heifer that lows in the upland farm, 

Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; 

The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, 

Deems not that great Napoleon 

Stops his horse, and lists with delight, 

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height; 

Nor knowest thou what argument 

Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. 

All are needed by each one; 

Nothing is fair or good alone. 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

STUDY TOPICS 

i. Are you ready to offer yourself for useful service in 
some community activity like the Needham me- 
morial work? 

2. Have you already taken part in any social-service 

work? 

3. In Lowell's poem of Sir Launfal he says, "The gift 

without the giver is bare." What does he mean? 

4. Read 1 Corinthians 12: 14-26, and apply those to our 

living together. 



EACH FOR ALL 155 

Make a list of the interdependence of people in your 
own life, beginning with the arrival of the postman 
or newspaper boy before breakfast and running 
through to the last workman you see as you stand at 
the window ready for bed. It may be a messenger 
boy no older than yourself bringing you good news 
in a letter. 

Text: 

But now are they many members, yet but one body. 
— 1 Corinthians 12: 20. 



CHAPTER XXV 

PLAYING THE GAME OF LIFE 

Did you ever ask yourself what you can be doing now 
to make your life in the latter end add up the cheerful 
word "success' ' instead of the pathetic word "failure'? 

THE GAME OT LIFE 

We have studied enough about the value of health 
and enough about the value of wealth to know that 
neither health nor wealth is of any concern to anyone 
if the only outcome of health and wealth be simply the 
pleasure of the moment. In order to get abiding satisfac- 
tion we must take part in the interesting game of life 
and play it with all our hearts. 

Playing fair. — Life is no mere game of chance. It 
is a game that takes wit and wisdom, knowledge and 
skill, friendship and love, a game where the more human 
you are the more divine you may become if you play 
your game with honesty. This playing the game with 
honesty challenges you every day, in your work and in 
your play, in your friendship and in your service to 
God. 

Your gifts and their use. — In order for you to take 
an active part in the game of life, let us imagine that you 
are playing a game of gifts. Let us hope that many 
good gifts have been dealt to you. We wonder if you 
have an acute sense of hearing and seeing. Have you 
ever tested yourself by playing the game of looking at a 

156 



PLAYING THE GAME OF LIFE 157 

table quickly, closing your eyes, and then recalling what 
you have seen? 

Are you able to recall the names of songs that have 
been played on the piano when the words have not been 
sung with them? Have you the gift of strength of muscle 
and nerve and heart. Is your memory able to grasp and 
hold facts? Have you a fine sense of right and wrong in 
playing with others in the school yard or at home? And, 
finally, have you a personal sense of obligation to play 
your game of life so well that all who watch you play 
will exclaim: "What a fine boy! How well he uses his 
gifts!" or "What a lovely girl! She is gifted in so many 
ways." 

If you play the game of life so well that your friends 
about you realize that you are using your gifts wisely, 
your success is sure. If you play your game unfairly, 
there is no doubt but that in the years to come there will 
be failure no matter what seeming success there may be 
at times on the surface. 

Winning and helping others win. — You will be the 
better player in the game of life the more you can change 
the seeming mischance into a good chance and make 
your opponent as well as your partner contribute some- 
thing to your success while you in turn contribute much 
to his. Everything has a good side as well as a bad side. 
Always make use of the good side. 

Nature plays a good game. — You can see how won- 
derful old Dame Nature is as she plays her game of life. 
In the winter when the storms beat upon the trees and 
branches fall, bringing seeming havoc, we groan with 
sympathy, and deplore the loss of the great branches or 
lesser ones, but with the spring and the coming forth of 
myriad leaves, nature covers over the devastation and 
in many cases sends out new twigs and tiny branches 



158 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

which before the autumn give the tree a new aspect and 
make up for the loss of the previous winter. Moreover, 
when a great storm brings havoc to the apple blossoms 
and the unthinking farmer deplores the loss of barrels 
of apples in the autumn, he forgets that nature in a way- 
makes up for the loss by having bigger apples and the 
greater demand for apples; so that the sale produces as 
much in actual price as might have been if the storm 
had not done away with the larger production. 

A CHALLENGE 

Someone has said that no boy or girl in America need 
lack the best education that he or she can use. There is 
always someone to help with scholarships for the fine 
boys and girls who really want to enter the game of life. 
There is no better stock in the world than American 
boy or girl stock. It is always at par. Gold bonds are 
nothing compared with the golden youth if golden youth 
makes worthfulness his goal. And to be worthful means 
to be clean in body and speech, to be awake to chances 
to help, to be intelligent, to think straight, to scorn 
cheating, to be earnest for the main chance, to be cheer- 
ful — yes, always cheerful — to be courageous. 

More than you earn.— Try being worth while and 
see how soon you will be getting even more than you 
deserve. What good things, especially what good 
friends you will find in the game of life! The reason will 
be because you first helped yourself. You will have large 
returns on your investment in gracious manners. Gra- 
cious manners will make you acceptable to strangers as 
well as friends, and because they are unconscious, and, 
as it were, second nature with you, you will wonder why 
everyone wishes to help you. You have sown good man- 
ners; you have reaped friendliness. Friends will spring 



PLAYING THE GAME OF LIFE 159 

up everywhere. The old Greek story tells us that Cadmus 
sowed dragons' teeth and armed soldiers grew up. But 
we are sowing better seeds and getting better harvests 
than Cadmus. 

In the Old Testament we find the very highest ideals 
of playing the game. In the last chapter of Proverbs is 
the beautiful description of the young woman who 
makes the most of her time and opportunity: 

She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her 
tongue is the law of kindness. 

She looketh well to the ways of her household, 
and eateth not the bread of idleness. . . . 

Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou 
excellest them all. 

Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a 
woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. 

Give her the fruit of her hands; and let her own 
works praise her in the gates. 

And in the Psalms again and again we find a challenge 
to young men to play the game of life with fairness and 
fervor. 



MEMORY QUOTATION 

The Ancient Mariner 

He prayeth well, who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast. 
He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small, 
For the dear God who loveth us — 
He made and loveth all. 

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 



160 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

STUDY TOPICS 

i. How do you feel about your playing the game? How 
do you feel toward the boys and girls who are not 
willing to play the game fair? 

2. What is your obligation in playing fair when a brother 

or sister does wrong and you know that, by telling 
your mother, in the long run you will be helping the 
one who has done wrong, but for the time being it 
would bring disgrace to the brother or sister and the 
title of tattler to yourself? 

3. A similar incident could arise with pupil and teachers. 

Give an instance and discuss it. 

4. When a boy helps a friend by copying notes for him in 

order that he may appear to get his lesson, how about 
playing fair to the class? Is it really playing fair to 
the boy who has been helped? 

5. What is cheating? What immediate satisfactions come 

from cheating? 

6. What is being "worth while"? What kind of satisfac- 

tion comes from being worth while? What is meant 
by large returns on your investment in the social 
graces? 

7. Does everybody help you just because you help your- 

self? 

Text: 

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you 
that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye 
are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with 
long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; en- 
deavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond 
of peace. — Ephesians 4: 1-3. 



CHAPTER XXVI 
TIME OFF 

Over in England everybody has the habit of doing 
something in particular besides his regular work. You 
will find in the English Who's Who at the end of each 
biographical sketch that there is a statement of what the 
man's avocation is as well as the story of his vocation. 
One great statesman writes books, another colonial secre- 
tary makes child-welfare his off-time work. A famous 
author seeks joy and change in his violin just as Charles 
Dickens fifty years ago spent much time in getting up 
theatricals, Robert Browning in working in sculpture. 

This use of one's leisure time is very important. It 
is not so much that we need rest as it is that we need 
recreative work, which means that we ourselves will be- 
come rested and stimulated to new activity if we create 
each day something which is pleasurable work and which 
calls us from our routine study or labors. An avocation 
must be something that uplifts us. It must be an occupa- 
tion that serves the purpose of rest in change. 

VOCATION OR AVOCATION 

With too many persons work and play exchange 
places, and the better enthusiasm is given to the time- 
off interest. With high-school boys and girls this is very 
often true. The entertainments which are gotten up in 
the secondary schools are often made the business of the 
students and the studies become little more than the 
accidents of the school day. But if boys and girls do 

161 



162 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

their school work with diligence, centering their whole 
mind on it while they study, there ought to be enough 
time outside of the eight hours for sleep to do many self- 
chosen things which are pleasurable. 

Outdoor recreation. — Aside from one's study there 
are the games — football, tennis, baseball, basketball, and 
cricket; music lessons, glee clubs, school orchestras. 
There are hours of the day when it is most important 
for the student to be walking or playing golf, skating, 
coasting, ice-boating, taking part in water sports, fish- 
ing, hiking, or using one's hands in woodcraft. In 
summer time there are so many avocations — keeping 
hens, raising rabbits or garden truck. If one lives in 
the city, one can assume a small agency which takes one 
out for delivering magazines or papers. The more we 
live out of doors and the closer we get to nature, the 
more we understand life. We have not enough half 
holidays dedicated to nature. As soon as school closes, 
good healthy boys and girls should make a point of 
getting out into the open. They should have pets. 

There is nothing like a dog as a companion for time 
off. If one sits in a boat fishing, it is pleasanter to have 
old dog Tray watching every movement of your rod and 
line. If you are walking through the woods whistling, if 
old dog Tray is close by your hand, he will attract your 
attention to some little animal that you had not seen 
and which you would not have missed for the world. 
Old dog Tray knows the forest better than you. Even 
a good cat is a pleasurable companion in time oft". They 
teach you many lessons in patience, in concentration, 
and if they are mothers with families of little kittens, 
they teach you how to play, they teach you how to 
work, and they teach you devotion. 

Pageants and pilgrimages. — In these latter days the 



TIME OFF 163 

schools are reviving pageantry. They are putting these 
pageants upon the stage or staging them on the school 
lawn. But in the old days, in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries, our ancestors took part in pageants that were 
infinitely more worth while for time off than anything 
we have to-day staged as a form of dramatics. The early 
pageant was a real adventure. The pilgrims started out 
by horse or by foot to go to some shrine, to visit some 
haunt, and up hill and down dale through the country- 
side they passed, the good folk enjoying the sight and 
the pilgrims themselves keenly alive to the excitement 
of their quest. By and by when you are older you will 
read the Canterbury Tales which tell the story of the nine 
and twenty pilgrims who went to Canterbury to the 
shrine of Thomas a Becket, and when you are still older, 
you will go to England and see Kenilworth Castle from 
which castle Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester 
set forth upon a pilgrimage famous in the history of the 
times. 

THE WAY CHRIST USED HIS TIME OFF 

We know that Jesus Christ loved flowers. He must 
have roamed over the hills around Galilee in his time off 
from the carpenter shop where he worked with Joseph. 

Someone has written a prose poem of the Boy Jesus. 
"I think of the Boy wandering over that open hillside, 
amidst beautiful nature, the manifestation of God; 
seeing God's green hills and laughing streams, and God's 
sun rising to light the world and sinking in crimson glory 
into the waters of the Great Sea; seeing the Father's 
flowers and birds and beasts, and delighting in them, and 
loving them, and feeling that the Father also delighted 
in them and loved them. In all his references to nature 
afterward he makes you feel this. God is behind it all, 



i6 4 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

interested in it all. God loves the little lambs sporting 
in the fields. God watches the poor sheep going astray. 
God feeds the birds of the air, which toil not, neither do 
they spin. God sees the young sparrow falling out of 
the nest. He clothes the grass of the field. He decks for 
his pleasure the wild flowers of the hillside, so that 
'Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of 
these/ And when the Nazareth farmer flings the wheat 
into the ground, the Child sees that the life is from God 
which miraculously springs up, 'first the blade, then the 
ear, and after that the full corn in the ear.' Did any 
other boy on earth ever enjoy nature and love it and see 
God in it as this Nazareth Boy ?" 

Our own ideals. — When we take Jesus Christ for 
our ideal and try to shape our life like his life we at 
once begin to realize that we too may enjoy nature and 
see God in it just as our Master did. We can see the 
unfolding of the springtime with new interpretation; we 
can walk through the summer months with a new 
realization of God in nature, and as the autumn and the 
winter approach we are still interpreting the harvest 
and the fulfillment of the seasons with the thought of the 
goodness of God. And it is not only in nature alone 
that we see God, but we see the divine in our friends 
because we are made in the divine image. Realizing 
this assurance of the divine nature, we make the hap- 
piest sort of discoveries in our fathers and mothers. We 
see they have characteristics like Jesus Christ; they are 
patient like him; they forgive seventy times seven; they 
make sacrifices and they always love us. Our brothers 
and sisters become dearer to us because they have in 
them qualities that belong to the Christlike nature, and 
even the baby in the cradle looks out of his great, wonder- 
ing eyes and we say with Wordsworth that he has come 




CHRIST KNOCKING AT THE DOOR 



Hofmann 



TIME OFF 165 

to us from the unseen world, "trailing clouds of glory 
. . . from God, who is our home." 

Jesus Christ used his time off to get closer to his 
friends and to know better those who needed him in the 
social world. Our time off can be used to no better 
advantage than in the ways in which Christ used his 
time in getting closer to his friends; in talking with men 
of all classes and conditions. 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Saviour, teach me day by day, 
Love's sweet lesson to obey; 
Sweeter lesson cannot be, 
Loving him who first loved me. 

With a childlike heart of love, 
At thy bidding may I move; 
Prompt to serve and follow thee, 
Loving him who first loved me. 

Teach me all thy steps to trace, 
Strong to follow in thy grace; 
Learning how to love from thee; 
Loving him who first loved me. 

— Jane E. Leeson. 

STUDY TOPICS 

1. Why for the most part have Americans neglected re- 

creation ? 

2. Why is one's leisure time so important? 

3. What right have we to say that an avocation ought to 

be something that uplifts us? 

4. When might we say that work and play are inter- 

changeable? 



166 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

5. Make a list of your self -chosen things which are to you 

most pleasurable. 

6. Note carefully and in how far you love the same things 

that the boy Jesus loved. 

7. Note lovingly the Christlike qualities that you have 

met in both old and young people. 

8. Why did Wordsworth say that babies came from the 

unseen world "trailing clouds of glory" from God? 

Text: 

What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many 
days, that he may see good? 

Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speak- 
ing guile. 

Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and 
pursue it. — Psalm 34. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

FOLLOW YOUR LEADER 

During one of Napoleon's great battles, when the 
fight was going against him, there is a story told of a 
famous little French drummer boy who was commanded 
to beat a retreat. The boy, stepping up to the com- 
mander, said, "Sire, I don't know how to beat a retreat, 
but I can beat a charge! Oh, I can beat a charge that 
will make the very dead fall into line!" And suiting the 
action to the word, he sent the rolling note "To charge" 
ringing out over the wavering lines with such a thrill 
that the faltering soldiers fell into line, gathered them- 
selves together and turning, swept back upon their 
enemy, carrying victory before them. That little drum- 
mer boy was a born leader! 

QUALIFICATIONS FOR LEADERSHIP 

What are the qualifications or characteristics which 
made the little drummer boy able to meet the officer 
with a straight challenge, thrilling the faltering soldiers 
so that they fell into line, and turning again, carried 
victory "over the top"? 

I wonder if the important qualities of leadership 
which follow are not the qualities which all boys and 
girls necessarily develop in leadership for basketball, 
football, or baseball, as well as for the battlefield. We 
need: 

i. The qualities of earnestness, and 

2. We must be desperately interested in the thing 
which we are about to do. 

167 



168 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

3. We must have will-power, and when we once put 
our hand on the plow we must keep it there until the 
furrow is turned up. 

4. There must be endurance, must there not? And 
not only bodily endurance, but mental and spiritual 
endurance to play the game. 

5. System and order and judgment and decision are 
all necessary for team work we will grant. 

6. Dependableness is a quality most important. 

7. Then there is responsibility. With Boy Scouts and 
Girl Scouts, think of the responsibility the leaders must 
develop for themselves and help develop in each of the 
group! 

8. What about imagination? Certainly, qualifications 
for leadership demand the ability to think ahead and 
imagine what may turn up that needs our judgment and 
decision on the instant. 

9. There must be unselfishness. 

10. And there must be the readiness to sacrifice. 



Just as we need splendid, masterful qualifications for 
leadership in school activities in order to play games 
well, whatever the games may be, so too there must be 
leaders in thought, pioneers of new ideas. History has 
always paid high honor to such men and women. 

Old-Testament heroes. — In the days when the Old- 
Testament history was written, the leaders who took the 
responsibility and helped others to think and decide in 
private and public matters were such men as Moses, 
Abraham, Joseph, and the great prophets. Even to boys 
and girls of your age these names are familiar, and 
instantly you recall a story of their remarkable char- 



FOLLOW YOUR LEADER 169 

acters, each one different from the others, but each one 
marked as a religious leader. 

You know that from the very beginning Abram felt 
a sonship with God. He recognized God's authority as 
well as rejoiced in his loving-kindness. In the fourteenth 
chapter of Genesis we read the story of his fight with 
the kings. They had taken his brother's son Lot prisoner. 
It was at this moment that Abram had to show the 
qualifications of a great leader. He wished to regain his 
brother's son. He must lead an army. "He armed his 
trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred 
and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan," and the 
story goes on and describes how he and his servants by 
night smote the armies of the kings of Sodom and 
Gomorrah and pursued them unto Hobohah, which is 
on the left hand side of Damascus. He won the day 
and brought back all the goods, together with Lot and 
his goods and the women also and the people who had 
been taken with Lot. There was a great feast following 
the victory and Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought 
forth bread and wine (he was the priest of the most high 
God) and he blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram 
of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: 
and blessed be the most high God which hath delivered 
thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes 
of them all." 

And the king of Sodom tested him, asking him to give 
him back the people, the men and their wives, together 
with Lot, keeping for himself the goods which had been 
taken when capturing the army. This was a temptation 
which the king of Sodom hoped Abram would accept; 
but this leader of men, this man to whom God had 
promised Canaan and the renewal of the covenant, gave 
answer to the king of Sodom in these words: 



170 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

I have lift up my hand unto the Lord, the most 
high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I 
will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and 
that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou 
shouldest say, I have made Abram rich; save only 
that which the young men have eaten, and the por- 
tion of the men which went with me, Aner, and 
Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion. 

In this brief story one may find almost all of the ten 
qualifications for leadership. We propose that you paint 
a picture in your own minds and tell us where Abram 
used his imagination and his decision; where he was 
unselfish and made a sacrifice, and in how far he felt a 
great responsibility for his friends and family and the 
community in which he lived. 

New-Testament heroes. — Then, when we come to 
the New Testament, we find the story of Jesus Christ, 
who led his twelve disciples and later miraculously called 
to leadership Saint Paul. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, 
James, Peter and all the other disciples were gathered 
into one school with Jesus as their leader in order that 
they might learn from him how to carry the gospel into 
the country far and wide and how to establish it in far- 
away nations. 

Saint Paul's leadership. — To begin with, you know 
that Paul was Saul of Tarsus. He is commonly called 
Paul. Tarsus was a Gentile city, the seat of a great 
university, and as a young man Saul had been sur- 
rounded by Gentile people with Gentile ideas. He was 
educated thoroughly in ecclesiastical law and the ritual 
of the Jewish church, because he was a Jew, although he 
lived in the Gentile city. He was profoundly conscious 
of his personal responsibility. He was earnest, but his 
religion gave hini but little hope. He was impatient 



FOLLOW YOUR LEADER 171 

with the narrowness of Judaism, but he had found no 
way out until the moment came when, suddenly as by 
a shock of electricity, he experienced the great conver- 
sion of which we read in Acts. He heard a divine voice 
saying, "I send thee unto the Gentiles." For three 
years Saul remained in Damascus and for more than ten 
years he stayed in Syria and Cilicia. Gradually he be- 
came convinced that his work was to be the transforma- 
tion of Christian fellowship into the Christian Church. 
His mission as a leader began with his attempt to 
evangelize Galatia. The whole story is thrilling. Saint 
Paul would never have accomplished his wonderful 
undertaking in Macedonia, in Thessalonica and Athens 
and Corinth and, in fact, throughout Asia Minor, had 
he not been gifted with vision, imagination, determina- 
tion, and sacrifice. 

Assuming leadership. — In our own American history 
the pioneers of new ideas, the leaders in thought and 
action, have been men and women from all walks of life 
— soldiers, statesmen, preachers, doctors, inventors, 
philanthropists. What an array they make, beginning 
with Miles Standish at Plymouth and coming on down 
through the years to the Father of our Country, George 
Washington, and the saviour of our country, Abraham 
Lincoln. There leap to our minds the names of a score 
of men and women who have been able to work for us 
and think for us and whom we have been proud to 
follow. 

Becoming leaders in our turn. — Great people who 
are great leaders set us examples so vivid and thrilling 
that we in our little way wish to be leaders too. Leader- 
ship holds down all our low instincts and brings forth our 
better emotions. The more we develop our leadership 
the more we love our fellow men. 



172 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

The larger our sympathy grows, the more content we 
are in fulfilling our everyday duty, whatever the im- 
mediate duty is, for we know in the end duty will bring 
us happiness. We know that in the habit of thinking 
for others we shall find joy — joy in understanding the 
feelings of other people as well as delight in leading other 
people to some definite end. 

IDEALS FOR LEADERSHIP 

The ideals for leadership in modern life must, of 
course, be the same as they were when Jesus called his 
disciples. Christ's disciples are carrying on the work of 
the great Christian Master to-day. We recognize Jesus 
as our leader. When Jesus called his disciples to him 
saying, "Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" 
some of them replied that he was John the Baptist, and 
another that he was Elias, and another Jeremias or one 
of the prophets. And again Jesus said unto them, 

But whom say ye that I am? 

And Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, 
the Son of the living God. 

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed 
art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath 
not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in 
heaven. 

Later in the same Gospel we read that Jesus in talking 
of himself with his disciples emphasized the thought of 
service and sacrifice: 

If any man will come after me, let him deny him- 
self, and take up his cross, and follow me. For who- 
soever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever 
will lose his life for my sake shall find it. 



FOLLOW YOUR LEADER 173 

These ideals of self-denial are essential to the success 
of the leader. Again and again it would have been 
possible for Jesus to have made his daily life more at 
ease, but not once do we find him a king among men. 
He was always a man among his fellow men. 

"Ye shall know the truth." — Again, if we study the 
leadership of Jesus and the infinite pains he took to get 
his disciples ready for their leadership, we find in him 
forgiveness of sin. Seventy times seven, over and over 
again, must the leader of men forgive the men they lead. 
This requires great character. This demands that we 
sometimes even forgive our enemies. In John's Gospel 
in the seventh and eighth chapters we find the very 
words that Jesus used with his disciples as he trained 
them for their service. 

Perhaps in the twelfth verse of the eighth chapter 
Jesus makes the supreme statement of his leadership, 

"I am the light of the world : he that followeth me 
shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light 
of life." 

And again in the thirty-second verse ring forth the words 
that we would have all girls and boys remember: 

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make 
you free. 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Forward ! be our watchword, 

Steps and voices joined ; 
Seek the things before us, 

Not a look behind: 
Burns the fiery pillar 

At our army's head; 



174 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

Who shall dream of shrinking, 

By our Captain led? 
Forward through the desert, 

Through the toil and fight: 
Jordan flows before us; 

Zion beams with light ! 

— Henry Alford. 

STUDY TOPICS 

i. Name some great leaders you have already studied in 
school; whom have you learned to know and honor 
in current events because of the work that they have 
done during the Great War or since the war? 

2. Enumerate the characters in Bible history of whom 

you have studied in Sunday school who are to you 
great leaders. How can you compare a man like 
Moses with a man like Lincoln? 

3. In examining the text you have found that we have 

enumerated the qualities belonging to the Master 
Leader and Christ. Have our national leaders pos- 
sessed the same qualities in lesser degrees or have 
they been famous for certain characteristics only? 
For instance, could we say that Washington was 
endowed with imagination as well as the other 
qualities; or Lincoln with order? 

4. Name some kinds of leaders that have made America 

famous and honored. 

5. Suggest the kinds of leaders that will be needed during 

the next century to meet and solve our great prob- 
lems. 

Text: 

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. 
For there is no power but of God: the powers that 
be are ordained of God. — Romans 13: 1. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
GOOD FELLOWS 

Wolves go in packs for the sake of pack defense, deer 
run in herds for the sake of herd defense, and human 
beings love to get together. How is this call of the social 
nature to be explained? The answer comes from one of 
you: "Because we have a good time." 

What does "having a good time" mean? Does it really 
enhance one's pleasure to share one's joy? Does com- 
radeship on the open road, or over a task in the school- 
room or on the playground, become more thrilling because 
of the good fellows who join in the game or the work? 

THE CALL OF OUR SOCIAL NATURE 

What are the elements that go into good fellowship? 
To begin with, there is the excitement in the comrade- 
ship itself, whether it be in the competition between two 
boys or between two girls, or between a boy and a girl. 
To run alone is lonesome. Possibly it is not lonesome to 
walk alone through the woods or the crowded city streets 
because in the woods one has nature to commune with, 
and in the city there are so many sights to see. And yet 
walking alone in the forest would be too much like the 
life of Robinson Crusoe before Friday turned up to bring 
him problems and to bring him fellowship. I think we 
all want our Fridays even when we are not on a desert 
island. Certainly, on the crowded street there are so 
many things to see, and seeing these things starts us think- 
ing, and immediately we wish to talk aloud in our in- 

175 



176 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

terest over the sights and scenes which come and go 
around us. 

The silent comradeship. — And it is not only as we 
come and go in the open that we want fellowship. We 
long for it as we sit by the fire. Even when we have a 
good book we want to look up and see the face of a dear 
one and share the wit and wisdom from its pages. It is 
pleasant to feel that someone else just across the fireplace 
is in another big chair with his book or his work. One 
does not need to speak always, but it is pleasant to look 
up and see the comrade close by, silently doing the same 
pleasant kind of a thing that we are doing. 

In the workshop. — So too in the workshop one likes 
good fellowship. If we are at a carpenter's bench or 
doing tool work on leather, there is the competition 
which thrills us and stimulates us. We are quite sure 
that this getting together answers a supreme hunger in 
our natures. 

THE HIGHER FELLOWSHIP 

Just as nature demands for animals and human 
animals to get together for social interchange, so too the 
spiritual nature within us hungers and thirsts after the 
righteousness of our heavenly Father. We crave fellow- 
ship or sonship with him and we want to confess it and 
want others to have the same feeling that we have in 
our sonship with the Father. There never was such 
fellowship as that which we read about in the four 
Gospels. Think of the wonderful comradeship be- 
tween John and Peter and their Master, Jesus 
Christ. 

Extending Fellowship. — One cannot think of the 
Sea of Galilee without thinking of that group of fisher- 
men in their boats coming and going as called from 



GOOD FELLOWS 177 

their work as fishermen to their more important work 
as disciples. And this group of disciples who were first 
called by Jesus to follow him were not satisfied with 
their fellowship until others were added to their number. 
All about Nazareth and Capernaum and Galilee we can 
see in our mind's eye first this disciple and then another, 
sometimes two, sometimes four or five of them, plodding 
over the hills or walking down the dusty highways, in 
the large cities, or over the great caravan road going up 
to Jerusalem. 

The faithful majority. — The human social instinct is 
at its height when we think of the group that sat at the 
feet of Jesus Christ and followed him with such faith 
and earnestness and such loyalty. Only one of his dis- 
ciples failed him; only one disciple found it impossible to 
be a good fellow of the group, only one that could not 
take part in the sacrifices for the sake of the larger 
fellowship. 

Jesus' regard for the day's work. — Saint Mark tells 
us that it was at the beginning of his work in Capernaum 
that Jesus called the first of his disciples. Now, the 
people had crowded to the water's edge in order that 
they might listen to his teachings, and when the teaching 
lesson was over something happened. Someone has said 
that in the midst of the great things Jesus always thought 
of little things. He could think of the tired fishermen 
and their profitless night's work as well as the great 
message which he had to give in the language of the 
simple parable to the crowds of people who were listen- 
ing to him, "pressing on him" to hear the word of God. 
So when he left off speaking he said unto Simon, "Put 
out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught." 
And Simon said, "Master, we have toiled all night and 
have taken nothing, but at thy word, I will put down 



178 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

the net." When they had done this they inclosed a 
great multitude of fishes and their nets were breaking. 
Simon Peter saw what had happened and cried out, 
"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord," for 
he was amazed and they that were with him, at the 
draught of fishes which they had taken. And so also 
were James and John who were partners with Simon. 
Jesus recognized in these men something which they 
themselves did not understand. He knew that he had 
amazed them, but he also knew that they had faith, 
faith that if they did let down their nets he had the 
power to command something quite different. It was 
something more than the miracle of the fishes that 
brought Peter to the knees of Jesus that day. When 
Peter said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man," 
Jesus answered, "Nay, fear not, for henceforth thou 
shalt catch men." Jesus meant this whole experience as 
a lesson. They were rough fishermen at their work and 
the work was toilsome. They had nets to be mended and 
boats to be cleaned. They were to be no cloistered 
saints who could sit at leisure in the future. They were 
to become fishers of men and they must be prepared to 
be comrades of Jesus in his work. It was the beginning 
of the kingdom of God. Going on to the next boat where 
the partners were mending their broken nets, he called 
James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, and 
they left their father in the ship with the hired servants 
and went after him. 

Thus these four "good fellows," these men walking up 
the street in an obscure fishing village, became the 
nucleus of the group of Christians who established first 
the Christian society and then a Christian church and 
then Christian civilization. They seemed to be four 
ignorant young fishermen under the spell of a leader 




Hofmann 



THE CHRIST 



GOOD FELLOWS 179 

without any idea of where they were going or what they 
had to do, but they believed in their leader and they 
had comradeship in their hearts. Fellowship was their 
supreme attribute, faith the quality of their manhood. 
Thus was the beginning of the kingdom of God estab- 
lished through fellowship and comradeship with the Son 
of God. 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Song of Peace 

Children of one Father 

Are the nations all; 
"Children mine, beloved," 

Each one doth he call; 
Be ye not divided, 

All one family; 
One in mind and spirit 

And in charity. 
Wealth and power shall perish, 

Nations rise and wane; 
Love of others only 

Steadfast will remain; 
Hate and greed can never 

'Gainst this Love prevail ; 
It shall stand triumphant 

When all else shall fail. 

—M. K. Schermerhorn. 

STUDY TOPICS 

1. Do you feel that we are peculiarly a nation of good 

fellows, men and women who can get together and 
plan things? 

2. Is it possible in our American democracy to carry out 

the will of the people rather than to carry out the 
autocratic ideas of one individual? 



r 180 LIVING AT. OUR BEST 

3. As you read the newspapers and magazine articles 

about other countries, do you feel that our America 
has the possibilities of fine comradeship and power 
of working together as peculiar national character- 
istics? 

4. If this is so, how can we further it as citizens of our 

nation? 

5. Where is the best center in which we can begin to 

practice our good fellowship in citizenship? 

6. If fellowship develops rapidly in the schoolroom, is it 

likely that roots of leadership will grow so that in all 
probability fellowship will follow in other places of 
activity — the church, the state, and in society at 
large? 

7. What men and women in your city are famous for their 

fellowship in good citizenship as well as in club life 
and in their more intimate home relations? 

8. Examine your Bible and find stories of the disciples in 

their fellowship not only with each other but with 
Jesus Christ. 

Text: 

For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, 
whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be 
bond or free; and have been all made to drink into 
one Spirit. — 1 Corinthians 12: 13. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

LET THE PEOPLE RULE 

In Education in a Democracy Dallas Lore Sharp 
says: "What democracy is and what it is to be 
democratic — these are the first things to learn in 
school. After them come other things: to know the 
world of books, and to be a citizen there; to know the 
world of nature, and to be a citizen there; to know the 
world of science, and to be a citizen there. The world 
of men, however, laboring men, professional men, busi- 
ness men, Northern, Southern, and Western men — to 
know these men, yourself as one of them, for you are 
America, will be pretty safely educated for democracy." 

PREPARING FOR CITIZENSHIP IN A DEMOCRACY 

Now, if every boy and girl thinks about all the other 
boys and girls, men and women, in this spirit of de- 
mocracy, and if they partake themselves in this kind of 
equality, we shall very soon have a country which is 
ruled by the people and for the people, with ideals of the 
people dominating the life of society. But just so long 
as we are not willing to let the people rule, just so long 
as we step one side with a small group of people and 
consider ourselves different, or better or worse than all 
the others in other groups, the people will not rule. We 
shall be out of the game. We shall not partake in the 
great opportunity of democracy. 

Democracy a growth. — Every generation finds the 
world, on the whole, a little nearer democracy. Among 
the intelligent Greeks Pericles saw no absurdity in Athens 

181 



182 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

where there was a democracy on a basis of twenty thou- 
sand free men as Athenian citizens, while four hundred 
thousand slaves worked for these democratic members 
of society. Even until the days of our own Civil War 
most people here in the North believed that democracy 
could continue as it had been continuing with part free 
and part slave States. 

Lincoln's vision.— Abraham Lincoln declared that it 
was impossible for a democracy to grow with part free 
and part slave States. He saw the truth, and gradually 
the world saw it through his eyes. And the time came 
when the North was ready to lay down its life for the 
principle which Lincoln had first seen. 

For one hundred years women have asked that they 
too might take part in democratic rule, and at last by a 
federal enactment, the Nineteenth Amendment, the vote 
has been given to women. 

So little by little our democracy is following the ideal 
which has ever been before it. We like to think that 
this country was set apart for these ideals to be worked 
out in. We like to think that when the time came for 
people to partake in the brotherhood of man, God gave 
them the new continent and he gave it to the people 
who were to be trusted. More and more you boys and 
girls as you grow into men and women, will understand 
the meaning of democracy and in one way or another 
you will be the disciples who will be making real the 
dream. 

THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 

Sir James Bryce, the great Englishman, who made a 
study of American democracy and who wrote the dis- 
tinguished book, The American Commonwealth, which 
explains our government more clearly perhaps than any 



LET THE PEOPLE RULE 183 

other text, makes the statement, "in a democracy one's 
duty is not only to accept equality but to realize equality 
and make himself pleasant to his equals.' ' The word 
commonwealth means common weal. Our fellowship 
must include giving of ourselves as well as getting much 
from society. We must be able to mix with all sorts 
and conditions of people, and we must think in terms of 
the "greater good." In living and acting together we 
must gain a social consciousness, and this social con- 
sciousness can be readily gained as we play together at 
school and work together for the sake of our games long 
before we work together for business interests. 

Interdependence soon teaches us the social conscious- 
ness. Every time we cooperate with the group we are 
learning to be initiative and to take responsibility. In 
other words, we are taking part in social life. All the 
little daily and hourly experiences of our interrelations 
soon become pleasing to us, even if we cannot always 
agree that working with others brings personal success. 
For, after all, the test of success lies in our ability to 
work with others and not to surpass others; not to gain 
the end ourselves but to help create something worth 
while in the group. This social consciousness brings us 
to new ideals in regard to helpfulness. "Let the people 
rule" means that everyone is to help every one else not 
only in the political relationship but in the churches and 
social clubs. 

With such an ideal for democracy in view we begin to 
understand a citizenship which does not mean simply 
obeying laws or voting but one of far greater importance. 
We are building up a neighborhood consciousness and 
a community vision which takes all the visions of our 
highest moments and all the aspirations of our spiritual 
nature working together for practical politics. 



184 LIVING ~AT OUR BEST 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

The Conquering Army 

But see! Behold! from the awakened East — 
Where shines the splendor of the morning star, 
Where spreads the effulgence of the coming Dawn, 
Which heralds the glad birth of a new Day — 
A valiant company is moving on, 
An Army quiet, unregarded, small, 
Devoid of flaming arms and armaments, 
But terrible with Banners: strong in soul: 
Brave men and women with their hearts aflame 
To dare, to do, to help and to endure. 

How beautiful their onward pathway shines! 

The yellow corn springs high, the golden grain 

Waves promise on a thousand fruitful hills: 

Great cities rise, enduring works increase; 

Glad homes are crowned with comfort and with care: 

And brooding science finds new secrets out. 

The glory of accomplishment is theirs, 

The mission of the mighty enterprise — 

To conquer nature and to master art. 

The secret of eternal harmony — 

The reconciliation of the world. 

— Katrina Trask. 

STUDY TOPICS 

i. As a nation in 19 17 we went to Europe to save the 
world for democracy. Why was this slogan so 
readily taken up? Is the United States of America 
caring about democracy to-day as it did in war 
time? How do you know it? 

2. Since the Armistice what laws have been passed that 
express the desire on the part of the American 
people to further democracy? 



LET THE PEOPLE RULE 185 

3. What bills for better democratic life are being pre- 

sented in your own State as well as in the federal 
government at the present time? 

4. Why does democracy come so slowly? 

5. Why does it seem to be retarded at times? 

6. How many years did it take to shape our own national 

life after the American Revolution? Is it finished? 

7. Was the slow growth of the new nation possibly a 

better thing for the whole country than it would 
have been if the Constitution had been drawn up 
at once? 

8. Even though the United States rejected the League 

of Nations, now that forty-three countries are 
sitting at the Council Board developing the idea of 
internationalism, it would seem as though a slow 
growth of international democracy were taking 
place. In how far can boys and girls help shape 
that democracy? 

9. Our own Constitution has been changed or, rather, 

developed with the addition of amendments. Can 
you think of new amendments that may be added 
in the future to our own Constitution which will 
make of this form of government a still stronger 
document for democratic life? 

10. Can you suggest changes or amendments which will 

be appropriate in the development of a League of 
Nations? Remember "you are the hope of the 
world," and it will be your thoughts, the thoughts 
of this younger generation rather than our thoughts, 
the thoughts of the older generations, which will 
make of the world a safe place for everyone to live 
and to work for the welfare of all. 

11. The interdenominational movement of the churches 

is the finest development in our democratic life be- 
cause it is a movement to unify all churches into 
one great one — that of the Fatherhood of God and 
the brotherhood of man. How can you boys and 



186 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

girls help further this splendid movement, even 
though you at the same time remain faithful to your 
own denomination and uphold the creed of your 
own church? 

Text: 

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have 
lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? ... Ye 
are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill 
cannot be hid. — Matthew 5: 13. 



CHAPTER XXX 

'MY COUNTRY, 'TIS OF THEE" 

Our national hymns are filled with stirring sentences 
in which are expressed beautiful patriotic sentiments. 

"My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty." 

We love to sing these first two lines of Dr. Smith's 
" America.' ' The words ring out and we love to dwell 
upon the thoughts expressed in the third verse: 

"Let music swell the breeze 
And ring from all the trees, 

Sweet freedom's song. 
Let mortal tongues awake, 
Let all that breathe partake, 
Let rocks their silence break, 
The sound prolong." 

Descriptive songs. — Yes,this is one of the hymns that 
stir us. And Miss Katharine Lee Bates has drawn a 
picture of our American continent which we love to call 
"our country" and the words of her great song also thrill 
us. Miss Bates makes us see the amber waves of grain, 
the fruited plains, and the majestic mountains in the 
far West. We see the big white cities dotted across the 
green of our country. We love the lines, 

"A thoroughfare for freedom 
Beat across the wilderness." 

187. 



188 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

And as we sing the words we see the prairie schooners 
of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth making 
their way through the mountain passes of the Appalach- 
ians over into the rich plains of the Middle West. 

Through all the verses of "America, the Beautiful, " 
there is that same delight in the thought that our nation 
has been set apart for brotherhood. 

"God shed his grace on thee, 
And crown thy good with brotherhood, 
From sea to shining sea." 

In the verses which we have chosen for the memory 
quotation in to-day's lesson we see the sacrifice of the 
forefathers who suffered and toiled and labored and 
finally lay down their lives to found a nation. The 
historian, Mr. Hosmer, who has written these ringing 
verses, makes us realize that our Pilgrim Fathers founded 
our nation upon the majesty of law and the grace of 
freedom that we in the future years might carry on the 
work of righteousness and justice and peace. 

DEMOCRACY 

The more we think about "America, the Beautiful, " 
the more we realize that we have established on this 
Western continent something unique which other nations 
have copied and which more and more will become the 
ideal government of the world. The story of American 
history is one which takes hold of the reader, no matter 
where his home may be. There is something inspiring 
about the life of the pioneers from the days of the May- 
flower to the moment when James Otis defied the courts 
of England with the convincing argument, "Taxation 
without representation is tyranny." 

The inspiring story of America. — English poets, 



"MY COUNTRY, 'TIS' OF THEE" 189 

essayists, and novelists have used the story of the 
American Revolution over and over again as the subject 
of their writings. The French not only followed in the 
footsteps of the new United States, but they have ever 
been eager to follow in the ideals of freedom, the freedom 
which has established all manner of institutions for the 
betterment of the people over our great continent. 

It does not matter whether it was the Revolution, the 
Civil War or the War with Spain, the United States has 
been fighting for independence of character from the 
beginning to the end. All our dogmas, our forms of 
government, our proclamations are aimed toward one 
end — a greater opportunity for the citizens of the coun- 
try, greater opportunities for education — freeing the 
mind of America. 

OUR RESPONSIBILITY 

Just as the history of America has been one of prog- 
ress toward a larger freedom, so too citizenship has 
acquired larger and larger obligations. All good citizen- 
ship is tied up with service, not alone the service that 
is done by officials who as business men perform the 
many duties incident to carrying on the duties of public 
office, but the service which every man and woman and 
every boy and girl can share in helping to make a higher 
standard of government in right and justice. 

This obligation to one's good citizenship necessitates 
our recognizing and carrying out the Golden Rule in our 
daily living in the home, in the school, on the play- 
ground, and in the church. The proposition to put 
service into your citizenship as well as to get benefit 
out of your citizenship should lead men and women to 
seek office where they may be held responsible for 
earnest and active personal responsibility in their local 



190 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

government or even in larger official positions through- 
out the country. 

For the good of the group. — This responsibility to 
local government may be very far reaching. After two 
thousand years we begin to realize what a far-reaching 
influence a little group of people had who lived in Galilee 
and gathered together around their Leader for service. 
The Leader trusted his little group. As Jesus Christ 
withdrew he dared to leave his cause with the eleven timid 
disciples, who were faithful to him and were able to carry 
on his gospel even though it was most difficult at first 
to establish the thought of brotherhood in the hearts 
of society. 

Our country would not be the democratic world that 
we have to-day, to which flock aliens from all the nations 
of the world, if it had not been that the forefathers, who 
established the principles which govern this country, 
were Christian men. The mainspring of our ideals of 
citizenship had its beginning in the faith that there 
might be a kingdom of God on earth. 

FOUNDERS OF LARGER NATIONAL LIFE 

The heroes who have followed the life of Jesus Christ 
and made his thought effective and actual in their 
present day and generation have gained not only a 
hearing but an eager hearing whether they have been 
followers of Jesus in the church or adherents to his 
principles in government. 

Every day since Saint Paul started upon his journeys 
to the Gentiles the gospel of Jesus Christ has helped men 
found nations, opened the way to greater progress, and 
animated the lives of the country people. The kingdom 
of God, which is our country just as the United States 
of America is our republic, makes of us all one political 



"MY COUNTRY, 'TIS OF THEE" 191 

family. Jesus Christ proclaimed the brotherhood of 
nations. He gave to us all the common Father in heaven, 
the common brotherhood of man. He showed us the way 
into the Kingdom of Righteousness by being a friend of 
publicans and sinners, by his sympathy for the slave 
and the beggar and the worker and, above all, by his 
picture of all nations which shall be gathered together 
at the Great Day with no distinction of race or rank, but 
simply as men. This great principle of the essential 
equality of man and his responsibility to God makes us 
first of all loyal to our idea of democracy, and above 
democracy loyal to the Kingdom of Righteousness. 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

"0 beautiful, my country!" 

Be thine a nobler care 
Than all thy wealth of commerce, 

Thy harvests waving fair: 
Be it thy pride to lift up 

The manhood of the poor; 
Be thou to the oppressed 

Fair Freedom's open door. 

For thee our fathers suffered; 

For thee they toiled and prayed; 
Upon thy holy altar 

Their willing lives they laid. 
Thou hast no common birthright, 

Grand memories on thee shine; 
The blood of pilgrim nations 

Commingled flows in thine. 

beautiful, our country! 

Round thee in love we draw; 
Thine is the grace of Freedom, 

The majesty of law. 



192. LIVING AT OUR BEST 

Be Righteousness thy scepter, 
Justice thy diadem; 

And on thy shining forehead 
Be Peace the crowning gem ! 



Through God who made the nations 
And saved them by his blood — 

Through all the saints and heroes 
Who through the fire and flood 

Have trod the way of service 
For him and his dear Son, — 

Be this fair land defended — 
In liberty made one ! 

— Frederick L. Hosmer; Alt., F. M. Crouch. 



STUDY TOPICS 

i. Explain the difference between equality before the law 
and equality in governments. 

2. In what sense are we free and equal? 

3. Are the ideals of a democracy which is a government 

of the people, for the people, and by the people, the 
ideals which you really practice in playtime and 
worktime? 

4. How can a leader be a part of the group that really 

believes in a government of, for, and by the group? 
How can the captain of a football team be the hero 
of the team and a leader at the same time that he is 
trying to make every man on the team of as much 
importance as himself? 

5. If in a chain the weakest link is the strength of the 

chain, how can we compare a government of, for, 
and by the people with the chain? 

6. Give illustrations of men who have led the people and 

yet always followed the ideals of democracy in their 
leadership. 



"MY COUNTRY, 'TIS OF THEE" 193 

7. Why is Jesus Christ's leadership the noblest illustration 
of this definition of leadership? 

Text: 

And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth 
be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. — 
Genesis 22: 18. 



CHAPTER XXXI 
ARE YOU THE HOPE OF THE WORLD? 

When Hermann Hagedorn wrote the book which he 
called You Are the Hope of the World , he addressed it to 
the boys and girls of America. What he said is so very 
much worth while it seems as if every boy and girl ought 
to read the book and think about it and fulfill its gospel. 

Evidently, Mr. Hagedorn cares a great deal about 
boys and girls going forth from college to make a life 
business of helping others. In a poem which he called 
"The Troop of the Guard" he challenges his college 
friends to ride forth to the call of humanity. 

But the author of this spirited poem in the essay to 
younger boys and girls tells us very frankly that he 
believes that the boy-and-girl power of America is 
needed quite as much as the college and university 
power. He compares you with the boys and girls of other 
lands and other continents. He has made a study of 
boys and girls, and he believes that American youth 
has superior bodies and more eager minds and wills and 
hearts that are more stanch. If this is really true, cer- 
tainly you are fitted to be the hope of the world. He 
makes strong claims for you. 

THE MEASURE OF AMERICAN BOYS AND GIRLS 

As one goes on and reads the book one realizes what 
his standards of measurement are for American boys and 
girls. He says that you are loyal. Is that correct? 

194 



ARE YOU THE HOPE OF THE WORLD? 195 

He feels that you are chivalrous. Are you? He believes 
that you are clean in body and mind. Are you living 
up to that challenge? He assures us that you have 
strong wills. That will mean that you can say "No" 
when necessary, as well as you can say "Yes" at the 
right moment. 

"Are your hearts big?" is another challenge. How 
many boys and girls are really persistent, really truth- 
ful, full of tenderness for those in trouble, and fine with 
courage that will take you over the top of all difficulties? 
Probably you can recognize these characteristics in 
other boys and girls better than in yourself. 

Applying the standard. — Mr. Hagedorn goes on to 
line up the unworthy qualities of American boys and 
girls. The indictment is pretty severe, for he says 
some American boys and girls are cheap, wasteful of 
opportunity, ashamed of having an imagination or 
aspiration, enthusiastic only for dancing, the movies, 
and dress and the sporting pages of cheap magazines. 
We wonder where the boys and girls who are reading 
this book line up between these two pictures, the bright 
one and the dark one. We all know much of the bright 
side. We know something of the dark side. Look into 
your hearts and decide which describes you more clearly. 
We do not doubt but that it is the bright one, for you 
are still young and you wish to do right and you want 
to increase the sum of Tightness in the world. The 
wishing must develop into willing. The old saying, "If 
wishes were horses, beggars might ride," is a challenge. 
The important thing is that if we will to be good or 
to be helpful or to be happy, then goodness and helpful- 
ness and happiness will come because God's will and our 
wills are one. 



196 LIVING AT OUR BEST 



CHOOSE SIDES EARLY 

The way to become the hope of the world is to choose 
sides early. This does not mean the choice of your 
life's occupation, but, rather, the side that you are 
going to take in all sorts of tests. Are you going to be 
on the side of fair play or do you believe in favored 
classes or unfavored classes? Are you going to pass 
judgment when it is not more than a personal human 
fault or weakness, or are you going to judge by standards 
which you will hope others will mete out to you? To 
feel prejudice is to choose the wrong side. We want 
to see all-round people and ideals. Shall we say, "He 
is a colored man," or "He is a Japanese." What if he 
is a German! To be prejudiced is not "fair play." 
That is not judging by the standard that you wish 
others to mete out to you. 

Some things that must be decided. — Then there 
are customs and habits which we have not thought 
straight about because we have allowed traditions as 
well as prejudices to cover our minds. If you are the 
hope of the world, you must begin to think of the right 
and wrong of the world. Do you believe it right to 
gather together thousands and thousands of boys between 
the ages of eighteen and thirty to send across the seas to 
foreign cities to fight other boys of the same age who 
have been chosen by a group of diplomats to do the 
work of warfare? Tradition says that it is right. It is 
for boys and girls who are the hope of the world to 
think straighter about such things. 

Do you believe that war is the way to settle any- 
thing? Do you believe it right to spend ninety-three 
per cent of the national income on wars, past, present, 
and future? Already you are old enough to stop and 



ARE YOU THE HOPE OF THE WORLD? 197 

think if we had all that money we could build schools, 
and libraries, and great parks, where the working 
people could rest, because sometimes working people are 
too tired to go to libraries or to schools. They need 
recreation before they need the stimulation of books. 
You boys and girls are old enough to think about tax- 
ation and tariff, though it seems a long way from your 
everyday life, but you are studying American history 
and you know what has happened in the past in con- 
nection with taxation. You have learned the story of 
James Otis. He said, "Taxation without representation 
is tyranny." 

Intelligent Americans. — If you can think in terms 
of American history in 1763, you can think in terms of 
taxation in 1922. You read the papers. Are you reading 
the right things and are you reading between the lines? 
Are you a bundle of opinions that veer like the weather 
cock, or are you a thinking mind, day by day getting 
other light upon the thing which is your growing con- 
viction? Some people call the unthinking mind a 
narrow gauge. Surely, boys and girls who are the hope 
of the world must be broad gauge. 

These are a few of the questions which you must 
be able to answer to prove whether you are the hope 
of the world or the despair of the world. It is as an 
individual that you will count either way, very much 
or very little, according to your enthusiasms based on 
your intelligence. 

MEMORY QUOTATION 
The Fatherland 

Where is the true man's fatherland? 
Is it where he by chance is born? 



198 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

Doth not the yearning spirit scorn 
In such scant borders to be spanned? 
Oh yes ! his fatherland must be 
As the blue heaven wide and free! 



Where'er a human heart doth wear 
Joy's myrtle-wreath or sorrow's gyves, 
Where'er a human spirit strives 

After a life more true and fair, 

There is the true man's birthplace grand, 

His is a world-wide fatherland! 

Where'er a single slave doth pine, 
Where'er one man may help another, — ■ 
Thank God for such a birthright, brother, — 

That spot of earth is thine and mine! 

There is the true man's birthplace grand, 

His is a world-wide fatherland. 

— James Russell Lowell. 

STUDY TOPICS 

i. Have you read Mr. Hagedorn's poem, "The Troop of 
the Guard," or his book, You Are ike Hope of the 
World? 

2. What is meant by being chivalrous? 

3. The "challenge" in the text must set you thinking. 

Explain "If wishes were horses, beggars might ride." 

4. Explain "favored classes" and "unfavored classes." 

5. What does it mean to "read between the lines"? 

6. Have you a narrow-gauge mind? 

Text: 

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, 
that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, 
and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance. 
— Ephesians 1: 18. 



CHAPTER XXXII 
"SOUL-KEEP" 

At first we live wholly in a world of things, all of which, 
large or small, we want for our own. But long before 
we learn to pray for material things our mothers teach 
us to pray for our soul, that divine spark which came 
from God and will return to God after its sojourn for a 
season with our bodies. 

OUR FIRST PRAYERS 

We know a little boy who always spoke of his child 
prayer as "Soul-Keep." 

"Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep, 
And if I die before I wake, 
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take." 

The little boy unconsciously covered in this expression 
just what is meant by real praying for our spiritual 
growth. It is our first real prayer out of our own heart 
and quite different from the long and beautiful ones we 
learn later written in books or listened to in church as 
the minister prays for us. As little children we are not 
conscious that this our first real prayer is the most 
important prayer that can be made, for it expresses the 
longing that no matter what happens to us our souls 
shall be cared for. 

The Lord's Prayer. — After we have learned the 
"Soul-Keep" prayer, our mother teaches us the Lord's 

199 



200 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

Prayer, with which we have been so long familiar. As 
we grow older, it constantly takes on a new meaning. 
When we have arrived at the age of twelve or fourteen 
we begin to realize how the Lord's Prayer expresses 
what we really need to ask for from God, and it also 
teaches us how we should make the request. As soon as 
we begin to understand just why we are praying to our 
heavenly Father we begin to realize that we are stretch- 
ing out to something larger and freer than the limits 
around about us. The object of all education is to get 
at a man's soul, and the more the real self of every boy 
and girl grows and becomes conscious of its growth, the 
more the soul of the boy or girl prays to God for guidance 
and blessing. 

Christ's own prayer.— During the first years of 
childhood the "Soul-Keep" prayer and the Lord's 
Prayer become part of the boy's and girl's very mind, 
but later there is another prayer in the Gospels which 
should be studied with loving thoughtfulness because it 
is Christ's own prayer to his Father in heaven and is 
an example to us all who have learned to walk faithfully 
as we can with the leadership of Jesus Christ. In the 
seventeenth chapter of Saint John, Jesus Christ prays 
passionately to his heavenly Father that he may be 
glorified. 

I have glorified thee on the earth : I have finished 
the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, 
Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the 
glory which I had with thee before the world was. 

Jesus has fought the good fight and he asks his heavenly 
Father to reward him with those blessings which had 
been promised him because he had kept his Father's 
word. He goes on and asks his heavenly Father to bless 




CHRIST IN GETHSEMANE 



"SOUL-KEEP" 201 

his disciples, especially as he is no longer to be with 
them in the world. "Holy Father, keep them in thy 
name which thou hast given me, that they may be one, 
even as we are," and he cries out to his heavenly Father 
that they may be guided from all temptation and that 
the Christ's own joy may be fulfilled in them. 

I pray not that thou shouldest take them from the 
world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the 
evil. 

And lastly he not only prays for himself and for his 
disciples, but he prays for you and for me! This is the 
most wonderful part of the prayer, for it includes us! 

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also 
which shall believe on me through their word. 

You and I believe in Christ, we believe in our heavenly 
Father, and so Jesus Christ in this passionate prayer 
calls upon God to fulfill the blessing. 

The glory which thou gavest me I have given them; 
that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, 
and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in 
one. 

And so the prayer goes on and ends in love. It is this 
wonderful lovingness which is so important at your age. 
That is why we have said that the object of education 
is to get at a man's soul. If education passes one way 
and religion passes another way, it is inevitable that the 
man or woman, boy or girl, who is thus confused, grows 
insincere. 

The real life—To live at our best, life must be 
genuine. It must be free from contradictions. We can- 
not serve God and mammon, which means not being 
inconsistent and harboring two states of mind. If we 



202 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

accept God and Jesus Christ, we must live with God 
and follow the leadership of Jesus Christ. The secret 
of successful living is victory over conflicting emotions 
and the peace which comes from an inner harmony. 
There is an old prayer in India which is as old as the 
prayers of the Old Testament, and it belongs to the 
ancient Buddhist religion. It runs thus: 

Let all creatures everywhere, all spirits, and all who 
have taken breath — without enemies, without obstacles, 
overcoming sorrow, attaining cheerfulness — move forward 
freely each in his own path; 

and a little later in the prayer run the words : 

in the East and in the West, in the North and in the 
South, let all things that are — without enemies, without 
obstacles, overcoming sorrow, attaining cheerfulness- 
move forward each in his own path. 

We have gone further than the old Buddhist, for we not 
only pray for the inner harmony which makes it possible 
for us to forgive our enemies, to overcome sorrow, and 
to be of good cheer, as Christ bade us, but we move 
forward not each in our own paths but on the great 
High Road of Righteousness with our fellow men, 
remembering Christ's command that we love our neigh- 
bor as ourselves, and recalling with humility that he 
not only laid down his life for his friends, but that he 
taught us by his example that we too must fulfill that 
one great sacrifice if we are to be true disciples. 

SACRIFICE 

But sacrifice does not necessarily mean doing some- 
thing difficult or something unpleasant. It means doing 
something — it may be pleasant or unpleasant as the 



"SOUL-KEEP" 203 

case demands — for the love of God in order to express 
that love. In other words, we cannot think of love 
without material expression. We can think of happiness 
and sacrifice being one when we realize that happiness 
comes only from unworldly love, and the unworldly life 
if one of love, must be one with God. Therefore every 
such act is made sacred by being God-inspired. Sacrifice 
is difficult only when we are not whole-hearted, when 
we offer timidly what we dread to lose. We would be 
willing to share, if in sharing, we did not fear to be 
impoverished. There is an old saying that "What I give 
I have," but it is hard to believe, whether the gift is toys 
or worldly position or money wealth. Yet as time goes 
on we promise you that the old saying will come true, 
just as Christ's own words are prophetic. 

To him that hath shall be given, and to him that 
hath not shall be taken away even that which he 
hath. 

At the outset this seems impossible. How to make 
an acceptable sacrifice, how to give Christ what he wants 
from us personally offers a problem for each one of us to 
solve, but if we are to live at our best the solving of 
problems would be inevitable, and if we are enjoying 
the comfort of living at our best, the problems would be 
easily solved. Jesus Christ, though tempted, never 
yielded to sin, for when the time came to give his body, 
mind, and soul, and he saw crucifixion before him, 
although he at the moment cried out that the cup might 
be taken away, in the same breath added, "Not my 
will but thy will." He knew that if it were necessary to 
make the great sacrifice in order that he might say "It 
is finished," he could do it. It was the only thing to do. 
Christ's work was finished, and he found happiness 



204 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

when he found himself in doing what he knew was his 
mission to do. 

JOY IN SACRIFICE 

Perhaps you can combine service and sacrifice; that 
is, suppose someone asks you to do an errand. The first 
suggestion is tedious and not inviting, but because the 
sacrifice has challenged you, away you go to do the 
errand for mother or a brother or a friend, and the mere 
stimulation of the walk refreshes your body, and with 
that refreshment of body comes inspiration. A curious 
mental reaction comes creeping over you. You are doing 
something holy, offered to God, because it is a sacrifice 
to do this errand for mother. All the time that you are 
doing it you are listening to God whispering to your 
conscience. His counseling through your conscience 
brings you into communion with him and an uncon- 
scious prayer follows because there is an overflow of 
reverence and love gushing forth like the song of a bird 
as you swing along in your walk on the errand. Your 
singing expresses itself because you are happy in your 
service to your mother, you are happy in your physical 
exercise, and your sense of oneness with God's beautiful 
world all around you makes you one with God. 

LIVING AT OUR BEST 

The outlet to this unconscious worship, this com- 
munion with unseen love, is generous action expressing 
itself in deeds, and this expression of deeds is the con- 
stant onward extension of the kingdom of righteousness. 
Living at our best includes worship, communion with 
God, prayer, service, sacrifice. The idea is expressed in 
a much quoted passage from Saint James: 



"SOUL-KEEP" 205 

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the 
Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows 
in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted 
from the world. 

According to Saint James, living at our best may be 
summed up in service and personal integrity. It is not 
only what we believe; it is that a man should be helpful 
and clean. In Saint Matthew one finds very remarkable 
statements. Christ sets forth with utmost clearness the 
standards by which he himself would judge the human 
soul, this soul as little children we have asked God to 
keep. 

Then shall the King say unto them on his right 
hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the 
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
world; for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; 
I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, 
and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was 
sick, and ye visited me ; I was in prison, and ye came 
unto me. 

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, 
Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? 
or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 

When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? 
or naked, and clothed thee? 

Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came 
unto thee? 

And the King shall answer and say unto them, 
Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it 
unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have 
done it unto me. 



206 LIVING AT OUR BEST 

MEMORY QUOTATION 

Take my life, and let it be 
Consecrated, Lord, to thee; 
Take my moments and my days; 
Let them flow in ceaseless praise; 
Take my hands, and let them move 
At the impulse of thy love; 
Take my feet, and let them be 
Swift and beautiful for thee. 

Take my will, and make it thine; 
It shall be no longer mine. 
Take my heart, it is thine own; 
It shall be thy royal throne. 
Take my love; my Lord, I pour 
At thy feet its treasure-store. 
Take myself, and I will be 
Ever, only, all for thee. 

— Frances R. Havergal. 

STUDY TOPICS 

i. What characters in fiction do you remember who 
have given themselves whole-heartedly to living at 
their best? 

2. Compare the greatest characters in history or fiction 

with that of Jesus Christ. 

3. Illustrate your own peculiar kind of happiness which 

has come to you from having done what you ought 
to do. 

4. Where have you seen examples of sacrifice in everyday 

life? 

5. Are persons always conscious that they have made a 

sacrifice? 

6. Do you think that all people are conscious that they 

are praying if prayer is the sincere and dominating 
desire of the soul? 



"SOUL-KEEP" 207 

Look through the hymn book and find certain hymns 
that are prayers in themselves. 

If living at our best means health, wealth, and happi- 
ness, in how far have larger health, wealth, and 
happiness come into your lives because you have 
taken this course this year? 

Text: 

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also 
which shall believe on me through their word. 

— John 17: 20. 



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